Youtuber Joe Scott runs a series of entertaining commentaries that mix a bit of gonzo with big picture perspectives on science or history or culture.  Not quite as big-picture as I’d like, but still, better than most impatient digital citizens are used to. In this above-average episode, he discusses ‘accelerationism,’ which used to stand for efforts to accelerate the pace of human progress…  … only now its more frequent use is among cults of rightwing zillionaires and their sycophants (and there is a version on the far left!) who actively aim to tip our ..read more

Heading out for the eclipse... likely to be messed up by thunderstorms!  These things never work out.  Anyway, here's a little mini-rant about CYNICISM that might amuse you. BTW for the record, I really approve of the guys I am criticizing here!  They are of value to the world. I just wish they'd add a little bit of a song to their messages of gloom. Optimism is a partner of cynicism, if you wanna get things done.  It makes you more effective! == Jeez, man. Always look (at least a bit) on the bright side of life! == Carumba! Bruce Sterling and Cory Doctoro ..read more

Want to time travel? I found this on my desktop… a roundup of news that seemed highly indicative… in early 2022!  Back in those naïve, bygone days of innocence… but now…  Heck yes, a lot of it is pertinent right now! Like… saving market economies from their all-too-natural decay back into feudalism. ------ First, something a long time coming!  Utter proof we are seeing a Western Revival and push back against the World Oligarchic Putsch. A landmark deal agreed upon by the world's richest nations on Saturday will see a global minimum rate of corporation tax  ..read more

They said it of Moses - that he had 'lamps on his brows.' That he could peer ahead, through the fog of time. That phrase is applied now to the Prefrontal Lobes, just above the eyes - organs that provide humans our wan powers of foresight. Wan... except in a few cases, when those lamps blaze! Shining ahead of us, illuminating epochs yet to come. Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Vernor Vinge Alas, such lights eventually dim. And so, it is with sadness - and deep appreciation of my friend and colleague - that I must report the passing of Vernor Vinge. A titan in the literary ge ..read more

Far too many of us seem addicted to downer, ‘we’re all doomed’ gloom-trips.  Only dig it, that foul habit doesn't make you sadly-wise. Rather, it debilitates your ability to fight for a better world. Worse, it is self-indulgent Hollywood+QAnon crap infesting both the right and the left.  In fact, we’d be very well-equipped to solve all problems – including climate ructions – if it weren’t for a deliberate (!) world campaign against can-do confidence. Stephen Pinker and Peter Diamandis show in books how very much is going right in the world! But if those books seem tl;dr, th ..read more

We're about to dive into AI (what else?) But first off, a little news from entertainment and philosophy ... and where both venn-overlap with myth.  Here's a link to a recording of the first public performance of my play “The Escape,” on November 7 at Caltech. A 'reading' but fully dramatized, well-acted and directed by Joanne Doyle. The recording is of middling quality, but shows great audience reactions. Come have some good, impudently theological fun!   (Note, for copyright reasons the video omits background music after scene 2 (The Stones “Sympathy for the Devil;”) and at the ..read more

Just back from an important conference (in Panama) about ways to ensure that the looming tsunami of Artificial Intelligences will become and remain 'beneficial.' Few endeavors could be more important... and as you might guess, I have some concepts on-offer that you'll find nowhere else. Alas, literally  nowhere else. Even though they merely apply only the same tools we used to make an increasingly beneficial society, the last 200 years. More on that later. Meanwhile... first off, since it's much in the news... want to see what the Apple Vision Pro will turn into within a few years? W ..read more

First a few items about my own works. In about a month, two of my books - Earth and Glory Season - will be re-released by Open Road Media - with gorgeous new covers, in both trade paperback and ebook versions.  Pre-order now? Here, Mark Rayner's lovely review of my novel Earth is very flattering.  For any of you completists out there: my first novel – Sundiver - is the only one that never had a hardcover. Now one is coming… and what an edition!  Alex Berman's Phantasia Press will release “Numbered editions which will feature a full color wrap around du ..read more

 Despite his being there to pitch softballs for his master, Tucker Carlson was treated by Putin the same way that Donald Trump treats his lackeys - with curt contempt. A real journalist might have asked:  "Will you present evidence to a broad, impartial, international commission that Jewish President Zelensky and the several million Ukrainian volunteers who have fought you tenaciously - are Nazis? Would you go along with that commission polling large numbers of random Ukrainians, to see if they deem themselves to be Russian?" More:  "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said that ..read more

 A 'rightward shift'? Only if our confidence is destroyed!  Which both MAGA and Hollywood seem bent on achieving. I quote below a passage from interesting book -- The Aftermath: The last days of the baby boom and the future of power in America, by Philip Bump. Indeed, as far as it goes (see below) the passage and the article/book make some supportable assertions. Certainly my own kids mutter “boomers!” pretty often, sometimes without a smile! And yet, this obsession is also misleading. For one thing, U.S. boomers aren't French. They like to work and have po ..read more