CONGRATULATIONS: You have successfully levelled up to NERD-GODDESS FOOD MATRIARCH.
New abilities include: cooking food just with your mind; converting between all forms of metric & imperial without using a calculator; summon Dolly Parton once a day; turn tap-water into champagne.
I’m putting this on a t-shirt! (Not the whole thing, just the NERD-GODDESS FOOD MATRIARCH part) In fact, I’m changing the name of my newsletter to this. 😂 (Branding is everything…)
Arghhhh ... nooooo!!!! This would (had I the requisite hardware) have been brilliant to take part in.
Romanticsm (nature exceeds our ability to understand; gasp in awe!) vs the Enlightenment (all happiness and knowledge is within the grasp of rational beings; education and reason offer us the key to both).
Spoiler: I lean towards the second of these, but awe can be compatible with Enlightenment values. After giving a good example of William Paley's Blind Watchmaker argument ("if walking on a moor, I found a stone, I would not think any more about how it came to be there, but if I found a pocket watch, I would deduce that such an object required a maker. The existence of something like the human eye similarly tells us that there must be a Maker"), Richard Dawkins writes, in his book The Blind Watchmaker: "I hope that the reader is as awestruck as I am and as William Paley would have been by [echo location in bats]. My aim has been in one respect identical to Paley's aim. I do not want the reader to underestimate the prodigious works of nature...". Dawkins' driving force has been wonder, and the need to understand.
Awe is good, awe with comprehension is better (so definitely looking forward to the coming series!!!)
Like you, I lean more towards the latter - and I'm good with the former as long as it doesn't give up on the philosophy of asking questions, because when Romanticism turns into Mysticism, it seems a lot of our curiosity gets surrendered in the process. Yes, so much out there may be ineffable, but we should still try to...erm....eff it. That's what makes us human.
And I feel your pain! Until maybe 2 weeks ago I was 100% Windows & Android, but I decided to pick up a cheap 2nd-hand iPad Air and see if I'd take to it. And I have, in a big way - it's a beautiful thing. I'm very much not a fan of the way iOS locks you out of the back-end of so much (I'm the type that would spend hours fidding with CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files in the day just to get PC games to work) - but wow, reading books on an Air is a lovely, lovely thing...
Also, I think I need to expand my reading to encompass Dawkins on this topic. Thank you!
Ok, I'm going to try this because wonder and awe are things that are on my mind right now! As you can see, it took me a week to make the space to properly read this so I may be weeks behind you but I'll be there, climbing the mountain at my own snail's pace! I need to go find this twitter thread I think. I LOVE that you are going under the sea! A few years ago when we still did things in person I went to a wonderful presentation with two under-ocean photographers. it was both stunning and sad (the damage we are doing to the ocean). Can't wait for season 4! (She says knowing she still wants to read back through all the existing seasons, but my desire to consume and read and wonder is still at odds with actual clock time, lol.)
OKAY MAYBE SLIGHTLY NOT SORRY TOO because I saw you join the circle and I knew two things: (1) it was going to be SO good to have your eyes and brain in there, and (2) I suddenly knew I was going to work a bit harder, because those eyes and that brain of yours work at such a high level.
Hooray!
And yes, that meteor. The eerie thing about it personally was - I was wandering back from the shops with my head full of the topic of oceanic exploration, and in particular, a deeply unsettling 1953 John Wyndham novel called 'The Kraken Wakes'.
In that book, alien invaders colonise the depths of the oceans and use them as a base of operations for acts of terrestrial terrorism, and there's not a damn thing that humanity can do about it because of the incredible technical challenges of even getting down there, let alone doing so with weapons. I'm going to write about it soon because it's a really unsettling thought, and therefore a great example of Good Scifi Asking Uncomfy Questions.
And then I saw a green meteor - which is the opening scene of Wyndham's most famous novel, The Day Of The Triffids (1951). So for a second - just for a second - I had a full-body sublime reaction, a mixture of WOW SO GORGEOUS and OH GOD YOU'RE KIDDING DON'T WE HAVE ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH....
I think Threadable maybe needs one of those "here's how you use Threadable" explainder videos showing how it's all done, because I had a moment of wondering this too. It's like the normal process of highlighting text before you copy it to paste elsewhere - except when you do it, "Comment" pops up as an option on the righthand side. So you can highlight a block, or a sentence, or even a word.
Haha I know you have no regrets! (And just so you know, this brain only comes across as working at a high level because I read so much and can cross-reference, which means it sounds smarter without actually saying anything more.) I'll have to get a hard copy though.
I have never read that book and now want to but maybe not because I don't need more things to worry about! On the other hand, there's more than one Doctor Who episode with aliens living in the depths of Earth getting up to all sorts of shenanigans for centuries if not millennia.
Also I'm reminded of an early-pandemic comic where it seemed like there was a new crisis every month, and someone drew aliens looking at a calendar of the upcoming month and saying to one another, "I'm so nervous."
>>"this brain only comes across as working at a high level because I read so much and can cross-reference"
Ah, right, you mean - the process of recalling lots of disparate things and bringing them together to form original creative insights? I think that's called....being good at thinking? Therefore I REST MY CASE HERE, M'LUD.
Yes, Doctor Who has a rich history of "they've been here for centuries' aliens - and I think that's taken from a pulp scifi trope in the heyday of the pulp magazines (which itself reworked a lot of anxiety about foreign spies and sleeper agents, esp. Communism in American literature). The whole "can you really trust your neighbour?" thing...
But the deep-oceanic threat is a twist that might have some real-science implications that are well worth thinking about. Like: maybe they just *can't* survive at a pressure of 14 lbs per square inch, or an ambient temperature of 10-20 degrees C. Maybe they came from a world of immense pressure & heat or cold, and the bottom of the ocean is their only possible staging platform for practical reasons. And what if the only thing they need to do to erase humanity is....terraform us to death, quietly, from down there, while we can do absolutely nothing about it?
THAT angle is really unsettling (and taps into climate anxiety at the moment). I wonder if any scifi authors are working on it? I can't imagine this is an original thought...
It is SO EASY to pretend you're smarter than you are by slipping around quoting other people and opining on them rather than coming up with original thoughts ;)
You know, I'd forgotten about the influence of communism, Red Scare, etc., on many of these stories. Would love to dive back into all of that. Season 5 mebbe?
If a sci fi author isn't working on it yet I hope they will soon. My anxiety still remains firmly in space itself, and the Three-Body Problem's persuasive depiction of a universe so full of suspicion and paranoia that every new species is treated as hostile and wiped out just on the off chance they might be dangerous. Like maybe we should stop sending stuff into space until we have a chance to discuss this possibility!
Tell me of the waters of my homeworld, Mike. Fantastic new season start, thanks a million for the shout-out! And so glad Bettys is doing well :)
800,000 nerdpoints awarded for that reference.
CONGRATULATIONS: You have successfully levelled up to NERD-GODDESS FOOD MATRIARCH.
New abilities include: cooking food just with your mind; converting between all forms of metric & imperial without using a calculator; summon Dolly Parton once a day; turn tap-water into champagne.
I’m putting this on a t-shirt! (Not the whole thing, just the NERD-GODDESS FOOD MATRIARCH part) In fact, I’m changing the name of my newsletter to this. 😂 (Branding is everything…)
WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND THIS THING.
I’ll do it!😆
Ah, a fellow fan of Dune :)
👍 :)
It was beautifully played in context .. I'm sorry that I could not have given you more than one heart for it :)
❤️ + (new from Twitter ;)
Arghhhh ... nooooo!!!! This would (had I the requisite hardware) have been brilliant to take part in.
Romanticsm (nature exceeds our ability to understand; gasp in awe!) vs the Enlightenment (all happiness and knowledge is within the grasp of rational beings; education and reason offer us the key to both).
Spoiler: I lean towards the second of these, but awe can be compatible with Enlightenment values. After giving a good example of William Paley's Blind Watchmaker argument ("if walking on a moor, I found a stone, I would not think any more about how it came to be there, but if I found a pocket watch, I would deduce that such an object required a maker. The existence of something like the human eye similarly tells us that there must be a Maker"), Richard Dawkins writes, in his book The Blind Watchmaker: "I hope that the reader is as awestruck as I am and as William Paley would have been by [echo location in bats]. My aim has been in one respect identical to Paley's aim. I do not want the reader to underestimate the prodigious works of nature...". Dawkins' driving force has been wonder, and the need to understand.
Awe is good, awe with comprehension is better (so definitely looking forward to the coming series!!!)
These are wonderful thoughts, Mike.
Like you, I lean more towards the latter - and I'm good with the former as long as it doesn't give up on the philosophy of asking questions, because when Romanticism turns into Mysticism, it seems a lot of our curiosity gets surrendered in the process. Yes, so much out there may be ineffable, but we should still try to...erm....eff it. That's what makes us human.
And I feel your pain! Until maybe 2 weeks ago I was 100% Windows & Android, but I decided to pick up a cheap 2nd-hand iPad Air and see if I'd take to it. And I have, in a big way - it's a beautiful thing. I'm very much not a fan of the way iOS locks you out of the back-end of so much (I'm the type that would spend hours fidding with CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files in the day just to get PC games to work) - but wow, reading books on an Air is a lovely, lovely thing...
Also, I think I need to expand my reading to encompass Dawkins on this topic. Thank you!
"when Romanticism turns into Mysticism, it seems a lot of our curiosity gets surrendered in the process."
Ooh. There is a lot in that. It might explain some thinkers I've been struggling with recently. I want to think a lot more about that!
PS - Have you read "Tracking Wonder" (Jeffrey Davis)? I'm about 80% of the way through it and have found it interesting.
I have not! Will grab. Thank'ee.
Ok, I'm going to try this because wonder and awe are things that are on my mind right now! As you can see, it took me a week to make the space to properly read this so I may be weeks behind you but I'll be there, climbing the mountain at my own snail's pace! I need to go find this twitter thread I think. I LOVE that you are going under the sea! A few years ago when we still did things in person I went to a wonderful presentation with two under-ocean photographers. it was both stunning and sad (the damage we are doing to the ocean). Can't wait for season 4! (She says knowing she still wants to read back through all the existing seasons, but my desire to consume and read and wonder is still at odds with actual clock time, lol.)
You did not just assign me reading material I have so much reading material 😩 but how am I meant to pass this up?
(Can't remember if I said on the last post but that meteor -- wow!)
I'M SORRY!
A BIT!
OKAY MAYBE SLIGHTLY NOT SORRY TOO because I saw you join the circle and I knew two things: (1) it was going to be SO good to have your eyes and brain in there, and (2) I suddenly knew I was going to work a bit harder, because those eyes and that brain of yours work at such a high level.
Hooray!
And yes, that meteor. The eerie thing about it personally was - I was wandering back from the shops with my head full of the topic of oceanic exploration, and in particular, a deeply unsettling 1953 John Wyndham novel called 'The Kraken Wakes'.
In that book, alien invaders colonise the depths of the oceans and use them as a base of operations for acts of terrestrial terrorism, and there's not a damn thing that humanity can do about it because of the incredible technical challenges of even getting down there, let alone doing so with weapons. I'm going to write about it soon because it's a really unsettling thought, and therefore a great example of Good Scifi Asking Uncomfy Questions.
And then I saw a green meteor - which is the opening scene of Wyndham's most famous novel, The Day Of The Triffids (1951). So for a second - just for a second - I had a full-body sublime reaction, a mixture of WOW SO GORGEOUS and OH GOD YOU'RE KIDDING DON'T WE HAVE ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH....
Startling. :)
Tech support: how do you select a passage to comment on?
I think Threadable maybe needs one of those "here's how you use Threadable" explainder videos showing how it's all done, because I had a moment of wondering this too. It's like the normal process of highlighting text before you copy it to paste elsewhere - except when you do it, "Comment" pops up as an option on the righthand side. So you can highlight a block, or a sentence, or even a word.
They definitely need a how-to! It’s mostly straightforward but sometimes you need guidance. I think I got it—thanks!
Haha I know you have no regrets! (And just so you know, this brain only comes across as working at a high level because I read so much and can cross-reference, which means it sounds smarter without actually saying anything more.) I'll have to get a hard copy though.
I have never read that book and now want to but maybe not because I don't need more things to worry about! On the other hand, there's more than one Doctor Who episode with aliens living in the depths of Earth getting up to all sorts of shenanigans for centuries if not millennia.
Also I'm reminded of an early-pandemic comic where it seemed like there was a new crisis every month, and someone drew aliens looking at a calendar of the upcoming month and saying to one another, "I'm so nervous."
>>"this brain only comes across as working at a high level because I read so much and can cross-reference"
Ah, right, you mean - the process of recalling lots of disparate things and bringing them together to form original creative insights? I think that's called....being good at thinking? Therefore I REST MY CASE HERE, M'LUD.
Yes, Doctor Who has a rich history of "they've been here for centuries' aliens - and I think that's taken from a pulp scifi trope in the heyday of the pulp magazines (which itself reworked a lot of anxiety about foreign spies and sleeper agents, esp. Communism in American literature). The whole "can you really trust your neighbour?" thing...
But the deep-oceanic threat is a twist that might have some real-science implications that are well worth thinking about. Like: maybe they just *can't* survive at a pressure of 14 lbs per square inch, or an ambient temperature of 10-20 degrees C. Maybe they came from a world of immense pressure & heat or cold, and the bottom of the ocean is their only possible staging platform for practical reasons. And what if the only thing they need to do to erase humanity is....terraform us to death, quietly, from down there, while we can do absolutely nothing about it?
THAT angle is really unsettling (and taps into climate anxiety at the moment). I wonder if any scifi authors are working on it? I can't imagine this is an original thought...
It is SO EASY to pretend you're smarter than you are by slipping around quoting other people and opining on them rather than coming up with original thoughts ;)
You know, I'd forgotten about the influence of communism, Red Scare, etc., on many of these stories. Would love to dive back into all of that. Season 5 mebbe?
If a sci fi author isn't working on it yet I hope they will soon. My anxiety still remains firmly in space itself, and the Three-Body Problem's persuasive depiction of a universe so full of suspicion and paranoia that every new species is treated as hostile and wiped out just on the off chance they might be dangerous. Like maybe we should stop sending stuff into space until we have a chance to discuss this possibility!
This is going to be fantastic! Looking forward to reading together.
Hooray! I saw you joined. Thank you!
Congrats and welcome back from the break. So excited for the new season!
ME TOO. And thank you. What a mad week...