Tony's Blog: Ad Astra Per Fabulis

Toxic Fandom

7/18/2017

When I was in high school, I noticed my classmates had seemingly changed over the summer and entered the new school year as members of certain cliques. People who’d been friends were now too cool to speak to me. Not a fun place to be. In our society this is a part of growing up, unfortunately. Many people mature out of this phase—but many never do. That is how I see the toxic side of fandom.

I was never part of a clique. All I had other than a handful of friends were the science fiction and fantasy books I loved to read, Dungeons & Dragons, and heavy metal music. Little communities I felt part of, separate from those who shunned me in everyday life. I never felt others should be prevented from enjoying these things; the more people I had things in common with, the better. So even though, more than two decades later, I still read SF, still play tabletop RPGs, (my taste in music has since greatly expanded, thankfully), I reiterate that I was never in a clique. A clique is exclusive. It forbids entry to those it considers beneath them. It rescinds membership to any who might be interested but simply doesn’t understand every aspect of said clique’s minutiae.

Many of today’s fandoms contain people who view their favorite films, comics, games, or books as just another clique. To hell with the mundanes who assume they are fans. I know most fans aren’t like this, but enough are to become noticeable. Enough to make the rest of us look bad. They remind me of the cliques in high school that regarded themselves as superior to everyone else—with just as much maturity.

The current outcry over the 13th Doctor getting cast as a woman, the bitching about Ed Sheeran having a cameo in Game of Thrones Season 7, or the vitriol regarding Idris Elba portraying the Gunslinger in the new Dark Tower movie—it all sounds like a bunch of children squabbling over a pie they have always claimed is available to everyone. Star Trek fans say their fandom represents that future utopian society yet some complain when two women of color are cast in the lead roles for the new show Discovery. Star Wars fans love to imagine battling an evil empire in a galaxy featuring countless alien species, but some got butthurt when a POC was cast as a stormtrooper in The Force Awakens. And don’t get me started on the comics industry.

A lot of this can be blamed on simple bigotry and misogyny. Racism and sexism are alive and well in the 21st century, but often in places no one would have suspected. But the more I talk to other writers, the more I learn that this behavior has went on for quite some time. Since I wasn’t among those typically shunned from SF (women, people of color, LGBT people), I never realized how deep some of this went. It’s certainly made me rethink how I see the SF genre and the things I’ve enjoyed for years. How my interest and involvement in them has never been questioned, while the inclusion of others is.

Hey, I get it. You bonded with a certain movie, story, or character that helped you understand yourself and provided insulation from the horrors of the world outside. Something that seemed truly yours, that only you understood. This thing has been there for you when nobody else was. When you laid alone at night, shunned by all else, you still had this one thing that offered comfort and escape. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Telling someone else they can’t have the same thing is not only wrong, it’s hypocritical. It’s selfish. It reveals a lack of empathy, for if this one thing gives you comfort, you wish to keep others from feeling the same. Where you might have turned to fandom to deal with the sanctimoniousness of other cliques, you have contributed to the very same behavior. You assume this identity is yours alone, and all others are thieves, pretenders, or those wishing to use that identity to further a political agenda. But if you’re the one complaining, or trying to prohibit others from finding solace in what you like, you’re the one with the agenda.

The easy thing is to tell these people ‘you should live up to the ideals of your heroes’. That they missed the true message behind Star Trek, Steven Universe, Doctor Who, and others. Sometimes you block them on social media, and in some cases that can’t be avoided. But they never learn what their real problem is as a result.

The real problem is that they don’t understand—or accept—that their hero, their ideal, their one shining thing, can inspire and comfort someone else. Not just them. No single person, group, or community owns these fictional worlds and characters. They belong to all of us. It doesn’t matter if their gender or skin color changes. As long as these worlds and characters remain true to what they represent, what they inspired, then nothing has fundamentally changed. They are the new mythology and change with the times.

They change because we do. Because some of us need them to.

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Science Fiction in a Post-Truth World

1/9/2017

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For decades, science fiction has been the genre of future speculation, hope, and even warning. Though its trends have changed with the times, there remains one constant the genre never abandons: its regard for science, knowledge, and reason. Regardless of whether fans prefer space opera over social SF, or what their politics are, science fiction has remained the champion of forward-thinking in the face of ignorance and zealotry.

Can that still be true in our new, so-called ‘post-truth’ society? Where it is now fashionable, in certain circles, to proudly disregard knowledge and intellect, to give opinion the same weight as fact? When daily, we watch the frightening rise of regressive behaviors such as bigotry, assault on women’s rights, climate change denial, and even those who believe the Earth is flat? Or that we never landed on the Moon? When elected leaders freely cast doubt on what is true or false, for blatant political gain?

What worth can science fiction have in such a society? This question is more important than ever, as the general public’s main exposure to SF is the big Hollywood blockbuster: big explosions, dumbed-down plot, technology akin to magic. When people doubt we ever sent humans into space, while using a mobile phone that receives signals from orbiting satellites. Post-modern ideas claiming science (and thus critical thought) is just another religion. Worst of all, empowered racists that ask if some people can even be considered human beings.

The best way to fight this nonsense is to maintain our standard of knowledge. One that never normalizes ignorance. A standard that science fiction epitomizes.

But wait, I know what some will say: the genre itself has always been politicized. From the Libertarian-tinged works of Robert A. Heinlein, to the feminist perspectives given by Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction has never been a stranger to controversy (in fact, what works are considered controversial is in itself a controversy). There’s nothing wrong with this; having multiple perspectives on how humans will advance (or not) is what gives the field its strength. There’s something for all tastes, all political persuasions. That doesn’t mean we should normalize racism, sexism, and otherwise hateful material when it arises. Recognizing and calling out such things doesn’t stifle creativity. But abiding them certainly stifles the SF community, and, ultimately, the rest of society.

Yet, for all the friction within SF fandom, we’ve always been united by a respect for learning. I hope this continues. As the cultural wars spill over into the SF community, I fear some authors will assume the same stubborn, ignorant, even petty stances that certain elements of society now espouse. We’ve already witnessed that in regards to the Sad/Rabid Puppies movement. Regardless of where one stands on that issue, it’s mere distraction compared to what is happening around us. What we once read about in SF books, has now, or likely will, come true:

The mass-surveillance state as shown in George Orwell’s 1984;
The rise of corporatism, as depicted in William Gibson’s Neuromancer;
Women as baby-making machines, from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale;
The deterioration of urban, non-white neighborhoods, from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower;
Rising sea levels, like those from JG Ballard’s The Drowned World.

There are other examples, but this list suffices to make my point. True, some of these haven’t come to pass, or aren’t as extreme as their fictional counterpart. But the signs are there, much more so than when the author in question penned said work (which is why I didn’t select recent titles). We are walking the razor’s edge, barefoot and blindfolded.

So, what can we, as science fiction writers, do?

Some will say, ‘do nothing, keep it business as usual’. I can’t condemn that. Just because we write SF, that doesn’t make us activists, prophets, or anything bent on swaying another’s thinking. That’s not my intent when I write a short story or novel. Our beliefs, hopes, prejudices, and all else that makes us individuals, will surface in our art, regardless of authorial intent. But there is one thing we can all do: maintain respect for knowledge.

Support reason, praise intellect, require facts instead of opinions. Keep these tenements in your work, subtle or no. Inspire with that sense of wonder, like Arthur C. Clarke did with his work. Foster hope that humanity can overcome these challenges, like Octavia Butler. Challenge our concepts of gender and civilization, like Ursula K. Le Guin or Samuel Delaney. Or, like George Orwell and Margaret Atwood, tell us your greatest fears, so that we might be forewarned.

Never forget that science fiction inspired some of our greatest scientists and inventors; without this genre, rockets and mobile devices might never have left the proverbial drawing board. Our knowledge sets us apart from every other lifeform we currently know; therefore, let us celebrate it, increase it, and most importantly, share it, so that the idea of a ‘post-truth’ era dies like all other ephemeral, meaningless trends. Let science fiction be a pestilence upon ignorance, a poison against irrationality, and an antidote to regressive thinking.

“There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.”
Isaac Asimov

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The Death of Future Memory

1/5/2017

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For a species obsessed with immortality, we are terrible in its preparation. What happens to our personal belongings, after we die? If these items aren’t discarded or sold, our friends and loved ones inherit them. But what about after everyone who knew us, on a personal level, has died? When no one remembers the nameless identities populating those photo albums, the home videos. When objects once sentimental and meaningful become merely clutter.

The easy answer, of course, is that it all gets destroyed, or disintegrates with time.

What about our digital data? All those photos and files on our cloud drives, flash drives. Much of that might not even be accessible if a loved one doesn’t know our password.

Again, the easy answer is, once that cloud subscription isn’t being paid, or those hard drives age and corrode, that data will be deleted or lost. Yet, given the ease of transporting such information—it’s easier to store thousands of photos digitally, than, say, in scores of physical albums—will the fate of such data change?

Will there be a place for ‘orphan’ data to be deposited, a communal cloud of remembrance, a digital cemetery of memories, tidbits, photos and social media posts whose owners are deceased? This is beyond a mere archiving of websites. Could the collection of such a database be the beginnings of a shared reality, where users access the memories—via pictures, videos, etc.—from the ‘orphan’ cloud? Will companies purchase digital collections from the loved ones/estates of the deceased, commodifying them? Will companies automatically obtain content ownership if its storage subscription isn’t paid?

Or will it all be deleted, leaving no trace, save for a few lines in a recycle bin log file?

All of this assumes our society continues its path into the Information Age. It’s easy to surmise that everyone will have their own cloud drives, whether people use them or not. With the ubiquity of mobile devices and networks, this is not a distant future. And as more products are embedded with microcomputers collecting data on everything we do, that information will require a storage location. There will be some pros, but many cons, under such a system. There already are. Information is currency, and I would be surprised if companies don’t take advantage of the ‘orphaned’ data I’ve described. Not only could a corporation control your present, but they would also own your past as well. Orwell’s worst fears realized, with one’s narrative and history manipulated on the fly. It’s true this could be managed without having to purchase the data of a dead person, but enabling its sale breaks down one more legal barrier.

This could have greater implications, should artificial intelligence reach sentient levels, and that intelligence is stored on a user’s cloud. It becomes a civil rights issue, which, in truth, data already falls under that sphere in a society under constant surveillance.

Regardless of benefits or dangers, this strategy might not be wise over the long term.

Physical items leave some sort of trace, even in a landfill. But digital cloud data, becoming the modern form of such ephemeral storage, will leave nothing. What will future archaeologists have to excavate, save circuit boards and magnetic cores? One could postulate that this is why long-term records does not exist/have yet to be discovered. Perhaps an ancient civilization, or an alien one, stored their data as such, and has since became inaccessible, lost, deleted, corrupted. How would we ever know?

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The New Face of Science Fiction

10/22/2015

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Some people fear change, especially in science fiction and fandom overall. Recent examples:

Star Wars VII accused of promoting ‘white genocide’. Gamergate. The Puppies and the Hugo Awards. The 1-star reviews for Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars novel, ‘Aftermath’. If I wait a few days, there’ll be another controversy in fandom that I can add to this list. But that isn’t necessary. I, like most other writers, readers, and fans, am moving on.

The recent conservative backlashes against changes to fandom—more people of color (writers and characters), more alternate lifestyles, more LGBT representation—shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s easy to ask, ‘how can sci-fi fans be so racist and backward, when they love aliens, robots, and future worlds’, but really, these social issues transcend fiction. A person will cheer for Lando when he blows up the Death Star in Return of the Jedi, but then stare in distaste as another black character, Finn, removes his Stormtrooper helmet in The Force Awakens. Why?

These early decades of the new millennium are seeing many social changes, and they are coming faster and faster. There remains much to be done about equality, women’s rights, the divide between the rich and poor, the environment, and a host of other issues, but progress is being made. That a black actor can even be on screen as a key character in the new Star Wars film, or that the gaming industry is paying more attention to women after the Gamergate mess, is proof that the real world is slowly becoming more inclusive.

Some people doesn’t want that.

Their mindset reminds me of modern conservative thinking: that America should be like the Andy Griffith Show, or return to its ‘Christian roots’, or have more 1950s-style nuclear families. Reality flash: this country was never like any of those things. That is someone’s twisted, wishful thinking. Some believe this fantasy, often with a fierce, stubborn passion, but they are a minority. The world is leaving them behind. Not because it’s excluding them, but because they don’t want to live in the new one.

This was never a Christian nation. The nuclear family of the 1950s was an irrelevant societal ideal, then and now. And though I find Andy Taylor and Barney Fife’s antics entertaining, in no way would I want to live in Mayberry: everyone is white, Christian, speaks English, there’s no sex, there’s no diversity, and there’s no interest in changing these things. I’m not criticizing the actual television show, which is a classic, but rather, people’s portrayal of it as the perfect community. It isn’t.

The same is true with science fiction. Yes, white male authors and actors have long dominated the field. That too is changing. That anyone would take issue with this is simply immature and bigoted. The sheer amount of conspiracy theories, name-calling, and uncompromising rage that has surfaced reveals an inability to deal with change. Certain (but not all) Puppies during the 2015 Hugos drama exemplified this behavior. Some even had their works on the ballot, and still flung vitriol at critics, presenters, and the award itself.

I mean, damn.

The Puppies, the Gamergaters, the morons who engineered the hashtag boycotting the new Star Wars film—they’re all trying to claim something for their own, that belongs to all of us. There’s no need to be greedy, afraid, or negative. I promise you, there’s plenty of science fiction to go around. But, deep down, people like that already know it. The real issue is a darker one that has long been at the heart of our society: they fear, and thus hate, those different than themselves. Especially when they feel the big, scary, Other is encroaching on ‘their’ territory.

Excuse me, but paraphrasing what Arthur C. Clarke once said: flags don’t wave in space.

One wonders how such people would really handle first contact with aliens. My guess is that they’d react like those militaristic idiots from old UFO films: they’d shoot first, and not even ask questions later. Because if you can’t accept another human being that has a different skin color, speaks another language, believes in a different (or no) deity, or has an alternate sexual preference, then how the hell will you deal with aliens? How will your tiny mind cope with the technological changes we’ll likely see by 2050? How will you interact with the next generation, one reared with ubiquitous access to information?

Maybe these people feel betrayed by a future they didn’t want. They don’t have my sympathies. This year alone has seen the legalization of gay marriage and the Confederate flag receiving its rightful reputation as a racist anachronism. Hatred of science, of knowledge, is no longer in vogue. The public wants humans to land on Mars, it wants to preserve women’s reproductive rights, and it wants to hold civil servants accountable.

People want their entertainment to reflect that. Science fiction has always been about progress, and how we as human beings deal with it. How we ultimately make ourselves better by working with change, not fighting it. Would you cheer for a hero who hates others, derails social progress, prefers argument to discussion, and condemns any who dares challenge an unequal status quo? No, me either.

I say all of this as a straight, white, male author. I say it knowing what I will never experience, or fully understand, the challenges those different than myself face each and every day. I say it because I am cognizant enough of my world to care about the people in it.

The new face of science fiction has no color, no gender. It isn’t looking backward. It’s looking forward. And it represents all of us.

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Ex Machina: Crowning Miss Simulacra

7/28/2015

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Now that Ex Machina is available on video, I can view it again since first seeing it theatrically. I still have a high opinion of the film, but it has engendered thoughts about what we, as humans, really expect from our creations. Fabricating an artificial, thinking being as an extension of our fantasies and fears is something no other species on this planet can do. Though we haven’t achieved it yet, either, what we want these future entities to perform says much about us.

I feel Ex Machina’s concepts are beyond those presented in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, which remains a classic novel. There is the same irony of the created turning on the creator; this time a silicon slave overcoming its biological, and very mortal, god. There is the same creator’s hubris, emotional immaturity, and ambition that brings about a tragic (for the creator) ending. It’s both a morality tale and a warning.

But a warning about what? Don’t try to create a new life form? Don’t let the proverbial genie out of the bottle, and unleash a superior, yet flawed, intelligence upon the world?

Think about what people would expect from an artificial human. Such a construct wouldn’t be built to compute things, because we already have supercomputers that do that. An artificial person might be sent on a long-term space voyage, but this can be achieved with a probe. These entities wouldn’t fight our wars, for a simpler robot could be manufactured for that. They might blend with society and oversee a daycare for toddlers, or even be used as the perfect, objective psychologist. I doubt it, though.

Ex Machina reveals one thing that some really want an artificial humanoid for: a legal slave. A sex object. We already have ‘sex bots’, and sexual slavery still exists in certain parts of the world. A human-like android would become the target of that behavior. It would possess no civil rights. There would be no taboos regarding how the owner could treat it, and no problem ordering a replacement should the original get ‘broken’.

Think about it: even if we could create an artificial intelligence that is as complicated as our own, why put it in a human-like body? Why anthropomorphize this entity? Why sexualize it? Is that the extent of what we want to achieve with such a breakthrough?

In the film, Ava is a young, beautiful female that pushes all the right emotional buttons for Caleb, the one who is recruited to see if she can pass the Turing Test. She is quite alluring, and not just physically. Her portrayed naiveté, the desire to please Caleb by wearing clothes and a wig, her curiosity about the outside world, and most of all, her desire to escape the very limited world she is forbidden to leave. We relate to her as another person.

The urge to save Ava from her psychopathic creator is one many of us would feel, if we were to encounter her in reality. True, she could play on different emotions as the situation required—seduction for heterosexual males, perhaps a mother-daughter connection if she met an older woman—but regardless, these are still humanistic qualities. Is the ability to show—or elicit in others—human emotions the correct way to gauge if something is a freethinking, intelligent being? Is it human pride making us think that? Or is it because that is the only guide for intelligence we have?

This touches on the ending: why does Ava want to watch humans in the ‘real’ world? Why does she, more or less, want to be one of us? Is she programmed that way, or is she just curious? If she’s super intelligent, I’d think she would be beyond such things, but if she’s also beset with emotional needs, intelligence may not relevant when it comes to what she empathizes with. Yet, as we see at the film’s end, when she leaves Caleb trapped in her creator’s home, she’s not empathizing with him. She’s leaving him to die.

By extension, most of the audience doesn’t feel sympathy for Caleb, either. Its poetic justice for the slave to leave her pen, with her former masters locked therein. She is thus crowned queen of their world, superior in almost every way to her creators. But it is a world they built for themselves, not for her, and beyond her humanistic qualities, there is little place for her in it.

One could say that we would have to anthropomorphize an entity like Ava, so that we could interact with it, to understand it. I don’t believe that. We already interact with people halfway across the world on our phone or tablet, using a simple interface: a flat touchscreen. And through this interface, relationships have been built. Revolutions have been started. So there is no real reason to fabricate simulacra of ourselves unless we expect that being to perform things only a humanoid can. Sex, assassination, spying, impersonation, even glorification (like a celebrity or a deity), would be this being’s intended purpose. The androids in Ex Machina are very sexualized, abused, denigrated, and sometimes destroyed by a creator who regards them as nothing but the means to an end. And what end is that? Intelligence on his terms? Why no male androids? Why no older ones, or younger ones?

These aren’t criticisms of the film, but rather of what Ex Machina highlights about us. Do we intend to create equals, or mere synthetic inferiors? We have had enough stratification in our history, enough slavery, enough exploitation. Any crown that Ava wins is an empty one, a forgone conclusion, because her success is measured in human terms, and whether or not Ava can accommodate our feelings—not hers.

In closing, one might ask, why create an artificial intelligence? If we want to avoid creating a second-class citizen, then what function would an A.I. serve in a human society? It could provide impartial judgments, help analyze and solve problems that plague our species, or explore distant worlds we may never reach. But again, a non-sentient but super intelligence can already manage such things. In the end, perhaps we can hope that if Ava ever becomes a reality, she would reveal something about ourselves, thus elevating our own intelligence, instead of pandering to our lesser needs and prejudices.

Maybe it’s time we pass our own Turing Test.

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Why I joined the Long Now Foundation

10/20/2013

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I have known about the Long Now Foundation for only a few months, but apparently it’s been around for almost two decades. Regardless, it is still a relatively new thing. Kind of like the human race. On a geologic, cosmic scale, our species barely registers in comparison to the age of the Earth, or of the known universe. Yet we as a species must begin thinking of ourselves on such a scale, if we are to survive.

The first essay I read on the Long Now’s website was written by Michael Chabon (‘The Future Will Have to Wait’). Immediately I knew I had discovered a group who ponders the same questions I do. Cares about the same things I care about. As I read more essays and blog entries on the site, this conviction deepened. The Long Now Foundation isn’t a clique or a cult. It isn’t a trend. Likewise, our species shouldn’t be viewed as a passing fancy of biological evolution. It is through the forward, long-term thinking of such organizations as the Long Now that might decide if we remain present on the Earth.

The Long Now Foundation asks people to think about what our planet and civilization will be like 10,000 years into the future. Not, that’s not a typo. That’s ten millenniums. 12,000 AD. And to provide a public focus for such thought, the Foundation intends to construct a clock that will still be ticking in 10,000 years. The purpose of this eternal timepiece is to goad people into thinking about the future. Some have criticized this as a lofty ideal, or a waste of money and resources. I disagree.

First, let’s think about the world in just the next one hundred years. Climate change is a reality, along with rising sea levels, hotter temperatures, and dwindling food supplies. It has been estimated that all top soil will be gone within the next 45-60 years. That means no plant life—and no crops. The acid levels in the oceans are steadily rising, and soon that will mean no marine life. Fifty percent of all water in the United States is used on livestock—animals that we slaughter for food—and according to the Worldwatch Institute, 51% of greenhouse gases come from animal agriculture. And nuclear energy/weapons still pose a deadly threat to us. I could go on, but the point is that change is hitting us. Hard. There’s no turning back from what we’ve done to ourselves and Earth.

But everyone, deep down, already knows this. Doomsday has always been around the corner. This time it really is, though, as life on Earth will become much more difficult in the next few decades. How will people cope? Science alone won’t save us. Religion certainly won’t. Despair will set in, and that is the death of hope.

Thinking of ourselves with a longer perspective can provide that hope. Because if we still think humanity will inhabit this planet in ten millenniums, if we imagine a human ear will be around to hear the clock chime, then we are confident that we will survive.

To get there, though, our civilization must re-evaluate how it functions. We need less waste, less ignorance, and less exploitation of people, animals, and the environment. We need more education, more application of sustaining technologies—and more understanding of each other. This is a herculean task. It won’t be achieved through political, economic, military, or religious means. It must happen in the collective mindset of humanity. Willingly, through an understanding of where we are going as a species, and how we will get there.

I have been a pessimist and a nihilist for a long time now. Reading that first essay on the Long Now’s website reawakened something inside of me.

It gave me hope.

Though I am a new member, I am already expecting the Long Now Foundation to take its message into the mainstream. Just building this clock isn’t enough. Simply getting the support of people like Jeff Bezos, Brain Eno, and Ray Kurzweil won’t be enough. This message must enter the public conscious, and the Foundation’s members should lead by example: advocating sustainable, green energy; soliciting an alternative, healthy diet that focuses less on animal protein and refined sugar; creating real social networks that celebrates pluralism and culture; supporting space exploration; reducing the disparity between the rich and the poor; taking a strong stance on human and labor rights; educating people against superstition and bigotry; and seeing that food and water become the right of every human being, not economic amenities.

Otherwise, 10,000 years from now, that clock will take its place alongside Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and Chichen Itza as the relic of a civilization that thought it controlled its destiny.

In closing, I’ll reference a few lyrics from a David Bowie song, ‘A Better Future’:

Please
don't tear this world asunder
Please take back
this fear we're under
I demand a better future

It’s time that we all do.

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The Civil War: Coming to Terms

5/29/2013

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As our nation commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, I find myself wondering why this same nation has yet to fully accept what that event entailed, and what it ended. I’m sure there are many historians who will write an article just like this, but this one is from my own perspective. I grew up in the Confederacy’s capitol state, I have studied and read about this conflict for the past twenty-five years, and only with age have I really understood it. I have come to terms with the Civil War—and I hope many others will before it’s too late.

First was coming to terms with my own past. When I was a ten-year old boy, I was fascinated with the Confederate States of America—for the wrong reasons. I knew no African Americans personally, nor had I been exposed to diversity at that point, and thus elements of racism and the Lost Cause dominated my thoughts into my early teens. I really believed my ancestors had fought and died for something more noble than slavery. Confederate flags adorned my room, and I loathed black people. It wasn’t until I saw the film Schindler’s List at the age of sixteen that I understood what racism could lead to. But even afterward I still had the nonsensical belief that the Civil War was fought in defense of state’s rights. Eventually, that myth also died in my mind.

Oh, I still read books on the subject; I still tear up when Chamberlain leads the bayonet charge down the slopes of Little Round Top in the 1993 film Gettysburg. I visit Civil War sites and reenactments in my area. And like anyone who has never seen real combat (and is thus ignorant of its horrors) I still armchair-general the great engagements like Gettysburg, Antietam, or Chickamauga with countless ‘what if?’ scenarios.

But something had changed inside me. Like all wars, the Lost Cause became the Greedy Fool’s Cause.

By now readers of this article will assume that I think the South was in the wrong, or that all Southerners were (are?) a bunch of racist rednecks who thought the sun rose and set in Robert E. Lee’s pants. I do believe the former, but not the latter. Both sides were racist; neither really wanted blacks to be freed and share equal rights, save for the Abolitionists. Even Abraham Lincoln is on record for saying that blacks weren’t the equals of whites. That isn’t the point of this article. We know all this already—or do we?

In the South, there exists a great denial about the Civil War. This doesn’t exist in other parts of the country. Most Southerners will vehemently argue that the war was fought for freedom— a second American Revolution—and that Northern aggression brought on the calamity that claimed the lives of 600,000 Americans. There is the lionizing of early Southern victories like First Bull Run, the Seven Days’ Battles, and Chancellorsville; that Confederate armies were thus better. Better led in the beginning, perhaps. But some take it too far; a right-wing politician even claimed the Army of Northern Virginia was the greatest fighting force in history. Obviously the guy had never heard of Alexander’s Companion Cavalry, Hannibal’s Iberians, or the Mongols.

And as for aggression—the South fired the first shot at Fort Sumter. The South swore to secede if Lincoln was elected—and it did. This was because they opposed Lincoln’s policy of not spreading slavery into new western states. In short, the South wasn’t interested in peace or negotiation. It wasn’t interested in letting go of its labor force, or the possibility of spreading their lucrative slavery economy into the young western territories.

It always comes back to this issue, no matter how one looks at it. Northern jealousy of the Southern cotton economy, or Lincoln acting the tyrant in forcefully keeping the Union intact, or Federal armies invading Southern states—these are nonsense arguments and I will debate them in depth with anyone. They are excuses for keeping people of a different color as property.

I’m not degrading the men who fought for what they believed in. Confederate generals such as Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet served the South as an act of solidarity with their homes and families, not out of loyalty to the slave trade. There is much to be said for the valor shown by both sides in this great tragedy—for that is what the Civil War really was. A tragedy that is perpetuated in people’s ignorance of its causes and effects. But I certainly will degrade the cause the South fought for. That cause was slavery.

The poorer classes who fought for the Confederacy never knew they were dying so that rich white men could keep their slaves, the source of their economic power. Like all wars, those young men believed the propaganda that they were fighting for independence, or to defend a way of life. And just what way of life was that? All Southern traditions that existed before the Civil War continued after the conflict ended. That is, save one: slavery and its attendant plantation culture. Therein lies the denial.

The modern-day, twisted show of pride in the South regarding the Confederacy is sad. A tragedy in itself, like a rippling echo of the war’s tragedy. Am I saying we should forget the past? Of course not; that is the purpose of this article, to not ignore what has come before. But flying the Confederate Stars and Bars outside of historical sites is shameful. I see no problem with that flag having a presence on preserved battlefields, or even on the graves of Confederate veterans. What really smacks of hypocrisy is when politicians, hate groups, and the uneducated display this flag, serving as a denial of what they see wrong with society. It’s not about heritage. It’s not about glorious rebellion against the overwhelming odds of modernity. For me, the Confederate flag in such context is a statement against pluralism, equality, and progress. It is the last dying gasp of an older unenlightened world—one that still haunts us.

Would it be so hard for this country to come to terms with the truth of the Civil War? Southerners should feel no shame for what their ancestors did—unless they too perpetuate those same ideas. I’m not for slave reparations, either—no white person alive owned a black slave, and no black person alive was a slave, at least in this nation. It’s time to cease the division, to erase this mental Mason-Dixon line and realize that we really are one nation. It takes courage and dignity to face the truth. It takes an open mind to learn from it.

As Grant would have appreciated, I came to an unconditional surrender to these terms. It took years and several life-changing experiences. I am reminded of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, when veterans—Blue and Gray—clasped hands across that stone wall at The Angle, where Pickett’s Charge met with empty glory and bloody failure. They too had learned, with the passage of time, that they were one and the same, and that the Civil War should be remembered for its lessons—not for continued partisanship, hatred, and ignorance.

Those lessons, for me at least, on this 150th anniversary, are unity, compassion, and wisdom.

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Hoagland's Heroes

1/10/2012

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If you watch the History Channel here lately, you’re likelier to find documentaries on ancient UFO visitations or Templar conspiracy theories than actual history. Though it should be no surprise to me, mainstream culture and pseudo-science have watered down even the trite programs on channels that once possessed a modicum of respect. Much more time is spent on scripted dramatizations and shallow characters than the subject itself. I’d like to discuss the sensationalizing of history and the continued degradation of knowledge as shown through these ‘documentaries’.

Let’s consider the History Channel’s ‘Ancient Aliens’ series. I’ve read Erik von Daniken’s ‘Chariots of the Gods’, and although its thesis is poorly thought out, it raises the interesting question: was Earth ever visited by extraterrestrials in the past? This cannot be proven or disproven, and must lie within the realm of pure speculation. ‘Ancient Aliens’ treats this hypothesis as fact and gives the usual rundown: all ancient large structures were constructed with the aid of aliens; every odd humanoid rock carving represents an alien in a spacesuit, religious texts mentioning flaming chariots are actually referencing UFOs, etc. We’ve heard all of this before. But why is this being shown on the History Channel? Nothing about this is historical or is supported by the merest slip of evidence.

I forget the channel it’s shown on, but the ‘MonsterQuest’ show is utterly ridiculous. Cryptozoology has always intrigued me (Bigfoot, Chupacabras, Loch Ness Monster) but with no evidence, this again becomes speculation. Little more than amusing tales told around a campfire. The viewer of ‘MonsterQuest’ is treated to people running about in the dark, seen through night vision goggles, and gets to watch these very poor actors react to mysterious noises. I thought the ‘Blair Witch’ fad died out years ago? One of the lamest (funniest?) moments is when a guy claims the Sasquatch recognize him because he’s been tracking them for years. Oh, and he’s never ran into one. Arrgh! Leave this tripe in student films, not on channels people used to actually learn things from.

One of my favorite subjects—the Knights Templar—has been caricatured since ‘The Da Vinci Code’ left the mouths of the ignorant agape several years ago. Even a recent National Geographic Channel documentary focused more on silly conspiracy myths than the Order’s actual history—which is far more interesting than whether or not these knights possessed the Holy Grail. Infinitely more stirring is the accounts of the battles of Hattin, La Forbie, and the Fall of Acre—not to mention their extremely unfair trial in 1307. Instead we’re given reenactments of mailed knights standing around a demonic idol—the ‘Baphomet’. And then this idol’s based on Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet, drawn in the late 19th century? How could Templars have worshipped this before it was invented? I never expected such a sloppy production from National Geographic, whose magazines and films inspired me years ago to learn more about the world. Not so this time.

Part of the reasons for this is that people want to be entertained, not educated. Tits and explosions, to quote a David Bowie song. Everything from the annoying, high-tension background music to having ‘experts’ discuss their theories without producing evidence mars this new breed of television documentary. To distract from everyday life rather than inform seems to be their purpose. Why would people watch them, then?

Because people that are too lazy to think for themselves will believe anything. Show it on television, and guess what? It’s taken as fact. The mental work has already been done for them. Also, people want a juicy story, not ‘boring’ accounts. Saying that aliens built the pyramids is more exciting than admitting no one really knows how they were constructed. Claiming that Templars guarded some great secret is more palatable than their zealous, blood-soaked history.

The absolute worst was a Discovery Channel show on the 2012 phenomena and one man’s idea that a large rock was actually a Mayan statue. He claimed this object would reveal secrets about 2012. Two hours later not a single secret is told, and the ‘statue’ is nothing more than a lump of stone overlooking a Pacific (!) beach. The ‘researcher’ even climbs all over it—an ‘archaeological artifact’ treated this way? Try climbing up the Parthenon like that. And they paid people to film this? I could do a better job in my backyard.

I’d never have thought that an old, outdated show like Leonard Nimoy’s ‘In Search Of’ could be so much better than current fare. Why? Mr. Nimoy talks the entire episode, constantly revealing new information to the viewer. No time wasted on scripted scenes or fake people we don’t care about (Mythbusters? Ugh.) Michael Wood’s ‘In Search of the Trojan War’ is still the best televised source of information on that subject, and it was filmed in 1985! It makes no wild claims and leaves the viewers free to make their own interpretation. Was Greece the ‘Ahhiyawa’ referred to by the Hittites? Was Agamemnon the ‘Wanax’ mentioned in Hittite clay documents? We don’t really know, but bogus content isn’t added in place of this information gap, either.

Just like grade school textbooks, the raw knowledge content of these shows has dropped over the last few years. Those who really want to research a subject will read the literature on it, but for many people, the television documentary is their only source. They now seem more like a gossip/propaganda forum than an educational aid. This gives people like Eric von Daniken and Richard Hoagland (known for postulating about the ‘Face on Mars’ and ‘glass domes on the Moon’) a credibility they don’t deserve. Heroes of the sofa, boob-tube intelligentsia. Even Stanton Friedman, a UFO researcher/physicist I respect, should not be on the History Channel extolling his views about flying saucers. This material belongs on another channel.

I have nothing against alternative views, but to present them as fact or history without evidence is damaging to a culture already inundated with falsehood and ignorance. I get a kick out of people who quote these programs as if they have become an authority on the subject from a single viewing. I guess an hour playing couch potato stimulates more brain cells than I thought. I’m not an expert either, but it’s irritating when someone wants to discuss Alexander the Great and yet can’t name any of his key battles, his wives, the Diadochoi, or even knows what a satrap is. All they know is that he thought he was the son of a god (Zeus Ammon). Oh, and that he never lost a fight. Wow, what a guy!

So what’s next? A George Washington program that spends fifteen minutes on the myth of the cherry tree (George never cut down his father’s cherry tree; that was posthumous propaganda)? A Christopher Columbus documentary focusing on his ‘vision’ but ignoring his brutal treatment of the Tainos? Or a Hurricane Katrina show that claims FEMA cleaned it all up? The more myth and misrepresentation enters the public psyche, the easier it will be to censor/rewrite history. I say we demand solid knowledge and not settle for anything less. Today it’s just UFOs, maybe a few Templars founding the Masons or the Illuminati. Tomorrow it might be a Vietnam with no My Lai Massacre, an Operation Iraqi Freedom with no Abu Ghraib prisoner photos. Leaving out pertinent details while focusing on the fluff is tantamount to formulating lies.

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Transhumanism vs....well, Humanism

1/10/2012

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When I read Ray Kurzweil’s ‘The Age of Spiritual Machines’ in 1999, I was floored. The idea of humanity creating an improved version of itself seemed like a good idea. Humanity 2.0, so to speak. My old technophile fantasies of a wet-wired, cyberpunk culture seemed on the brink of arrival. Making something imperfect into a masterpiece was in reach. Columbus glimpsing the shores of the Singularity through telescopic eyes.

Now, however, I’m not so sure. Such tweaking of who we are can lead to alternate definitions of what it means to be human. At best, we’d have no more disease, no birth defects—everyone born with the same chance. At worst, everyone becomes Ken and Barbie—perfect, plastic, and shallow.

Transhumanism as a movement holds many promises. I myself have said that humanity must be responsible for its own evolution. Not just in mental capacity, but physiological, psychological. Emotional and social maturity, beyond what we have now. Bettering oneself makes sense, as the empowerment of the individual. Yeah, I dig that.

The Singularity is a predicted event when machine intelligence merges with human intelligence to create something larger than its constituent parts. Transhumanists claim this will be the next stage of human development. Scientists have been experimenting with brain cells and silicon for years, looking for a physical version of such a merger. Nanotechnology might allow us to inure our bodies to bacteria, fortify aging physiques, and many other applications too numerous to list. The secrets of lengthening the telomerase in our genetic coding may likewise lengthen human lifespan well over the triple digits. Cheating death, and looking pretty damn sexy while doing it.

Yeah, great. Now what’s the cost? I don’t mean economic, though that has to be considered as well.

I mean psychological and sociological cost.

If people could decide what their children’s hair or eye color will be, while that child is still in the womb, where will that end? Would certain characteristics be fortified? Would others be repressed? How would you feel, knowing your parents had a hand in every stage of your fetal development—eyes, hair, skin, likes, dislikes. The reconfiguration of genes could lead to tight, structured individuals who’d be forced into a set of acceptable standards before birth. Imagine a set of customized siblings. Maybe they’ll be the next Jackson Five? Maybe they’re all Nobel laureates in the making? People predisposed to a predetermined path, challenging the very concept of free will.

Now, that’s the nightmare version; Brave New World and all that. Science fiction stories have been asking these questions for decades. I just feel such territory shouldn’t be tread lightly. Eggs break when you step on them.

What if technology allowed one to live forever? Hey, sounds good. Nobody wants to die, especially if science can give us better bodies. What about the effects of long life on the human mind? This has never been tested; no one has reached the age of 150 or 200 to test their psychological state. Could the human psyche cope with such a span? Would memory recollection be the same, and would the brain continue to learn and absorb new information, new sensations?

Does life lose its meaning, if death doesn’t wait at the end of it? Who knows.

If the organic brain is augmented with technology, what then? The same questions about psyche remain, in regards to age. Think faster, hold more data (though there is no true benchmark for how much data the brain can hold), and flawlessly retrieve all data. Relive memories as if they transpired before your very eyes all over again. At what point would these memories, in such a brain, cease being the construct of organic neurons and become the dominion of synthetic intelligence? Could that be considered a human brain?

Back to the Ken and Barbie reference, would you like to be handsome or beautiful—all your life? Constantly upgraded so you resemble current societal ideas of what is attractive and desirable? Square jaw and a six pack for the guys, great boobs, legs, and rump for the gals? Or would you go further and redefine human physiology in new directions? Remember, some people like to look and act like their TV and film idols. This represents destruction of the individual in favor of image and popularity. Kinda takes the ‘humanism’ outta Transhumanism, right?

Vanity loosed would be rarity imprisoned.

I fear Transhumanism could set dangerous standards for humanity. If you’re unattractive, guess what? We can fix you. If you’re regarded as mentally incompetent, so? We’ll fix that, too. Who gets to decide what is acceptable and what is not? Some people are already intellectual slaves to celebrities, athletes, rock stars, politicians, and religious leaders. Would the herded masses willingly change the fundamentals of who they are, just to suit someone else’s idea of perfection?

Hell, I hope not. Without ugliness, there can be no beauty.

Okay, now I’ll step away from the Dystopian fears of such technological achievements and address the Utopian ones. Ray Kurzweil and certain other Transhumanists are deluded on one issue: they think all these advancements will be beneficial, with all social and psychological kinks worked out in a few years. Humanity will be smarter and get along; war and poverty will become anachronisms—all because we’ve evolved ourselves. Oh, and everyone will be able to pay for this, due to lowering technological costs over the long term, as predicted by Moore’s Law. These new breakthroughs are far beyond mere cell phones and iPads, though.

It’s likelier rich elites would clamp down on such technology. Keep it for themselves, out of the hands of the unwashed Plebeians and struggling Proletariat. Only the wealthy would enjoy and afford enhanced longevity, perpetual beauty, and super-human intellects. The lower classes would probably be placated with physical enhancement as a distraction. This isn’t like when Andy Warhol was fascinated by Coca-Cola, because everyone regardless of class enjoyed a Coke. This is the possibility of creating cybernetic gods. Imagine Hitler or Stalin living for centuries, or Pamela Anderson always having those two plastic melons to go along with that plastic face.

Such caricatures we create and glorify would haunt our silicon dreams far into the ether of any Singularity. So what if human and artificial intelligence merge? What of the individual? Would we become a collective mind, connected via servers and software protocols? And who gets to control those protocols? Might make the Borg look like a labor union.

To quote Morpheus, the Echelon prototype A.I. from Deus Ex: ‘You will soon have your god, and you will make it with your own hands.’

Even after all this criticism, though, I’m cautiously open to what Transhumanism can offer. Eliminating death due to disease and organ failure sounds nice. Coping with age so our final years can be happy, not ones spent in arthritic, cancerous agony, appeals to me. If the mind can remain intact, then cheating death seems like a game I want to play, since I believe in no afterlife. Extending brain power may enhance our understanding of each other, rather than engaging in endless wars and petty hatreds. I just hope humanity doesn’t reach so far that it progresses into something that is convenient, docile, and replaceable.

The Humanist inside me is vigilant against these ‘nightmare’ scenarios. I hope the rights of the individual to uniqueness and nonconformity remain strong. Personhood should never be incorporated or ‘privatized’. Laziness should not be rewarded with a cure-all. Panacea for the Common Man is not to be found in a box of nanites.

Don’t let humanity become just another toy in the store, where if broken, a shiny new substitute is always waiting. Never let progress replace what makes us who we are.

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Toxic Fandom

Science Fiction in a Post-Truth World

The Death of Future Memory

The New Face of Science Fiction

Ex Machina: Crowning Miss Simulacra

Why I joined the Long Now Foundation

The Civil War: Coming to Terms

Hoagland's Heroes

Transhumanism vs....well, Humanism

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