(1) CADIGAN NEWS. Congratulations to Pat Cadigan who told her Facebook followers today:
I am now allowed to say that I am writing both the novelisation for the forthcoming movie Alita: Battle Angel as well as the prequel novel, Iron City.
And this is why I’m in Deadline Hell.
That is all.
(2) STAR PEACE CORPS. In “Star Wars Without the Empire”, Camestros Felapton conducts an awesome thought experiment inspired by Paul Weimer’s tweet.
In post-war Germany, a version of Casablanca was produced, re-edited and with a new script for the dubbing, that had no Nazis in it. As you can imagine, given the role Nazis play in the plot, they had to do a lot of work.
I was wondering if you could do the same to Star Wars Episode 4 – remove the Empire…
Star Not Wars Because They Aren’t Having a War With Anybody: A New Hope
A spaceship has broken down. Princess Leia finds a robot on the ship and gives it something. The robot (R2D2) finds an escape pod with its friend (C3PO). They leave the ship. We don’t see the ship again. It probably had engine trouble or something. Maybe the robots have gone off to get some fuel from a service station.
The robots land in a desert. After an argument, they split up. Later they each get caught by tiny people.
Meanwhile, young Luke Skywalker is unhappy being a farmer and living with his uncle. He’d rather be…doing something else I suppose.
(3) MARK YOUR CALENDAR. The Vintage Paperback Show returns to Glendale, CA on March 18.
(4) ROBOT ON PATROL. Tech Crunch reports “Security robots are being used to ward off San Francisco’s homeless population”:
Is it worse if a robot instead of a human is used to deter the homeless from setting up camp outside places of business?
One such bot cop recently took over the outside of the San Francisco SPCA, an animal advocacy and pet adoption clinic in the city’s Mission district, to deter homeless people from hanging out there — causing some people to get very upset.
The article quotes this tweet from Brianna Wu:
I’m sorry for being so frank, but this absolutely disgusts me as someone that experienced homelessness.
Every time I travel to San Fran my heart breaks from seeing all the homelessness in a city with so much wealth and privilege.
FUND PROGRAMS TO HELP THE HOMELESS, FULL STOP. https://t.co/LaalT3XhTl
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) December 12, 2017
The SPCA deployed a robot from security startup Knightscope to deter crime and vandalism on their campus.
And, according to both the S.F. SPCA and Knightscope, crime dropped after deploying the bot.
However, the K9 unit was patrolling several areas around the shop, including the sidewalk where humans walk, drawing the ire of pedestrians and advocacy group Walk SF, which previously introduced a bill to ban food delivery robots throughout the city.
“We’re seeing more types of robots on sidewalks and want to see the city getting ahead of this,” said Cathy DeLuca, Walk SF policy and program director, who also mentioned S.F. district 7 supervisor Norman Yee would be introducing legislation around sidewalk use permits for robots in the beginning of 2018.
Last week the city ordered the S.F. SPCA to stop using these security robots altogether or face a fine of $1,000 per day for operating in a public right of way without a permit.
The S.F. SPCA says it has since removed the robot and is working through a permitting process. It has already seen “two acts of vandalism” since the robot’s removal.
(5) THE DIAGNOSIS. Ted Chiang says “The Real Danger To Civilization Isn’t AI. It’s Runaway Capitalism” in an article for Buzzfeed.
…Speaking to Maureen Dowd for a Vanity Fair article published in April, Musk gave an example of an artificial intelligence that’s given the task of picking strawberries. It seems harmless enough, but as the AI redesigns itself to be more effective, it might decide that the best way to maximize its output would be to destroy civilization and convert the entire surface of the Earth into strawberry fields. Thus, in its pursuit of a seemingly innocuous goal, an AI could bring about the extinction of humanity purely as an unintended side effect.
This scenario sounds absurd to most people, yet there are a surprising number of technologists who think it illustrates a real danger. Why? Perhaps it’s because they’re already accustomed to entities that operate this way: Silicon Valley tech companies.
(6) CHEERS AND BOOS. Fanac.org has posted a 36-minute video of Robert A. Heinlein’s guest of honor speech at the 1976 Worldcon.
MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Kansas City in 1976, with Robert A. Heinlein as Guest of Honor. With a warm introduction by Bob Tucker, this sometimes uncomfortable speech touches on Heinlein’s belief in the inevitability of atomic war and his belief that mankind will go to the stars. There are comments on Russia and China, the role of men, and more than a few very bad jokes. You will hear applause and you can hear disapproving boos. If you are one of “Heinlein’s Children”, or simply a reader of classic SF, this video is a rare opportunity to hear that legendary figure.
(More background about the booing is here.)
(7) UNCANNY DINOSAUR ISSUE. The submission window opens in March – read the pitch and complete details here: “Uncanny Magazine Dinosaur Special Issue Guidelines”.
As you may know if you followed the Uncanny Magazine Year 4 Kickstarter, Uncanny Magazine Issue 23 will be a Special Shared-Universe Dinosaur Issue! The planned solicited contributors are:
- Sam J. Miller
- Brooke Bolander
- Mari Ness
- A. Merc Rustad & Elsa Sjunneson-Henry
- JY Yang
- K.M. Szpara
- Nicasio Andres Reed
Do you want to join them? One of the stretch goals was adding two extra unsolicited stories to the issue! We will be open to submissions from March 1- March 15, 2018.
(8) CAPITOL TBR. Former congressman Steve Israel profiles members of Congress in the Washington Post about their favorite books of the year and found Rep. Ted Lieu of California enjoying the Nebula Awards anthology and Rep.Adam Schiff of California reading Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series — “A former congressman asked his old colleagues for book suggestions. Here’s their list.”
(9) TROLLING FOR CLICKS. At NBC News, Noah Berlatsky asks “Is Star Wars’ ‘The Last Jedi’ science fiction? It’s time to settle this age-old argument”. Will anybody take my bet that the argument will not be settled by his op-ed? Or maybe it will, by a kind of cinematic force majeure.
To figure out whether Star Wars is science fiction, you first need to figure out how to define the term — which is harder than you might think. Genres are notoriously difficult to pin down, which is why they spark so many arguments. Some country fans protested loudly when Beyoncé appeared at the Country Music Awards because she (supposedly) was not a country artist. Some critics similarly argued that Bob Dylan’s lyrics are not literature, though the Nobel committee disagreed.
Genre is a marker of quality and belonging, of seriousness and community. Science fiction in particular is often seen as more important or serious than fantasy, so it’s no wonder that there’s been some struggle over how to place the films. George Lucas himself declared that “Star Wars isn’t a science-fiction film, it’s a fantasy film and a space opera” in 2015. Others have also waded in over the years; Annalee Newitz included Star Wars in a list of 10 science-fiction works that are really fantasy at io9, while author Brian Clegg says Star Wars is only “low-grade science-fiction” — it’s not quite real science-fiction, so it’s not high quality.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- December 18, 1957 — The Monolith Monsters premiered.
- December 18, 1968 — Chitty Chitty Bang Bang opens in New York City.
- December 18, 1985 — Terry Gilliam’s Brazil! was released.
- December 18, 1996 — Wes Craven’s Scream hits theaters, and a Halloween mask was born.
- December 18, 2009 – Director James Cameron’s Avatar premiered.
- December 18, 2013 — Forbidden Planet (1956) is selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
- Born December 18, 1939 – Michael Moorcock
- Born December 18, 1941 – Jack Haldeman
- Born December 18, 1946 — Steven Spielberg
- Born December 18 — Steve Davidson
(12) COMICS SECTION.
- Mike Kennedy overheard Dilbert talking about a zombie apocalypse.
(13) I HAVE A LITTLE LIST. SyFy Wire’s Swapna Krishna names these as “The 10 best sci-fi and fantasy books of 2017”. People get upset if I say I haven’t heard of all the books on a “best” list, so let me say I have heard of many of these.
(14) THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS 2014. Everyone has their own way of celebrating the holidays. John King Tarpinian’s traditions include rewatching Thug Notes’ analysis of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
(15) THE BIG BUCKS. Speaking of stacks of cheddar — “Star Wars: The Last Jedi takes $450m on opening weekend”.
The movie dwarfed its nearest rival – the computer-animated comedy Ferdinand, which took $13m (£10m).
The total for The Last Jedi includes $220m (£165m) from box offices in the US and Canada, placing the film second in the all-time list for North America.
It trails behind the 2015 release Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opened with a record-breaking $248m (£185m).
(16) BREATHLESS TAKE. Chuck Wendig launches his review with a long stretch of onomatopoeia: “The Last Jedi: A Mirror, Slowly Cracking”. And how often do you get a chance to use that word?
This will be less a review of The Last Jedi (Episode VIII) than it will be… my thoughts? An analysis? Me opening my head like a flip-top Pac-Men and seeing what globs of brain-goo I can grab and hastily smack into the screen?
Spoilers follow the noises, Wendig warns.
(17) WHAT’S BREWING IN SHORT FICTION. Nerds of a Feather’s Charles Payseur serves “THE MONTHLY ROUND – A Taster’s Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 11/2017”.
So please, take seat. The flavors on tap this month are perfect for those looking to unwind by the fire, to shed a tear for those who have not made it this far, and to reaffirm a commitment to pushing forward, into a future that is not mired by the same harms and dangers as the past. Each pint today comes with a special side of memories and a tendril of shadow creeping just out of view. The only remedy is to drink deep, and share the moment with those you care about, and look for ways to escape the familiar cycles of hate, loss, and fear—together….
Tasting Flight – November 2017
“An Unexpected Boon” by S.B. Divya (Apex)
Notes: Pouring a dark brown rimmed with gold, the first sip is deep, subtle and smoky like dreams burning, only to reveal newer, sweeter tones underneath, a future still bright despite loss and danger.
Pairs with: Honey Bock
Review: Kalyani is a young (probably autistic) girl who experiences the world quite differently from the rest of her family. It’s something that Aruni, her older brother, finds quite difficult to handle, especially when his parents have left him in charge while they are away. For Kalyani, though, it’s the rest of the world that doesn’t make as much sense, that overflows with threats and dangers…
(18) ON STAGE. It’s live! “The Twilight Zone returns to spook theatergoers”.
In 1959, a groundbreaking TV series began in the USA. The Twilight Zone came to be regarded as a classic of science fiction for the small screen. Now the Almeida Theatre in London is taking eight episodes to make a Twilight Zone for the stage.
(19) YA. A dystopia? Why, that’s just another day in a teenaged life: “Why Teens Find The End Of The World So Appealing”.
“The hallmark of moving from childhood to adulthood is that you start to recognize that things aren’t black and white,” says Ostenson “and there’s a whole bunch of ethical grey area out there.”
Which makes dystopian fiction perfect for the developing adolescent brain, says Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University.
“Their brains are very responsive to emotionally arousing stimuli,” he explains. During this time, there are so many new emotions and they are much stronger than those kids experienced when they were younger.
“When teenagers feel sad, what they often do it put themselves in situations where they feel even sadder,” Steinberg says. They listen to sad music — think emo! — they watch melodramatic TV shows. So dystopian novels fit right in, they have all that sadness plus big, emotional ideas: justice, fairness, loyalty and mortality.
This time in a kid’s life is often defined by acting out, but, Steinberg says, that’s a misguided interpretation of what’s happening. “It isn’t so much rebellion, but it is questioning.”
(20) BAD AIR. I remember breathing this stuff at the 2015 Worldcon: “California fires: Sentinel satellite tracks wildfire smoke plume”.
Europe’s new Sentinel-5P satellite has captured a dramatic image of the smoke billowing away from the devastating California wildfires.
It is a powerful demonstration of 5P’s ability to sense the atmosphere.
The plume is seen to sweep westwards out over the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles and then turn north towards the State of Oregon.
(21) JDA. Jon Del Arroz shares his vision of the controversies he’s engaged in this year with BayCon, Scalzi, Cat Rambo, Chuck Wendig, and some guy who scrolls pixels in “It’s Better To Be My Friend #JDAYourFriend”.
…Where they all screwed up, is that I’m a competent writer who works hard. I’m a competent businessman who markets hard. I don’t take my ball and go home and I’m not deterred from speaking the truth by some threats or someone’s bully pulpit.
And now I’ve got a platform. It’s one a lot of people read on a daily basis. It’s only going to grow bigger in 2018. I’m a well-respected journalist, I’m a multiple-award nominated author with an avid readership. I’m winning. Readers and audiences like winners. Yet not one of these people has come forward and said “you know what, Jon, I shouldn’t have attacked you, let’s be friends.”
(22) TO SMELL THE TRUTH. Hugo-winning editor Gordon Van Gelder had a famous father, Dr. Richard Van Gelder, who tried to stump the panelists on the episode of game show To Tell The Truth aired March 13, 1961. The chairman of the Department of Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, Van Gelder pere was specially touted as an expert on skunks. The real Van Gelder and two impostors appear at 17:00, and the truth is told right after the 23:00 mark.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, Cat Eldridge, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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5) I’ve heard Charles Stross talk about corporations and humans as the parasites within those entities as well.
19
Slight formatting fail here.
21
It is to laugh – guy who starts fights wants everyone to know it’s not him, really, it’s everyone else?
5) Just what I was thinking. Here’s one of Stross’ essays on the topic http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html
“Corporations do not share our priorities. They are hive organisms constructed out of teeming workers who join or leave the collective: those who participate within it subordinate their goals to that of the collective, which pursues the three corporate objectives of growth, profitability, and pain avoidance. (The sources of pain a corporate organism seeks to avoid are lawsuits, prosecution, and a drop in shareholder value.) “
(21) Good heavens. Why would anybody want to be friends with such an egotistical jackass?
21)
That is the most extensive fictionalization of reality I’ve seen since the Puppies’ heydey… with bonus implicit threats.
As far as his “devout” Christianity, the Bible has something to say about the false witness he’s bearing. 🙄
@20: at Sasquan, the smoke during the bad day wasn’t as bad as the dead smoke in the convention center the next morning; imagine all the cliche pre–smoking-ban faculty lounges in the state mashed together into one big stale space. Apparently they didn’t do any ventilation overnight; it may not have been so bad by the time regular attendees got there, but I had turnovers to check on every day in the exhibit hall so I was there some time before opening; walking indoors from the relatively clean outside air was Not Fun.
Chip Hitchcock: 20: at Sasquan, the smoke during the bad day wasn’t as bad as the dead smoke in the convention center the next morning;
No, it was far worse outside on the bad day. The next day inside the convention center was minimal by comparison. I know this because I walked a couple miles to the Post Office to help mail the EPH t-shirts, and it wasn’t too bad then. But by the time the packaging, labeling, and mailing was done, it was like a charnel house outside (and of course there were no taxis to be found). I was coughing continously by the time I got back and had lung problems for 3 weeks afterward. So no, it wasn’t nearly as bad inside the convention center the next day. 🙄
Jon Del Arroz seems to be living very, very far inside his own head.
Andrew on December 18, 2017 at 6:34 pm said:
The sources of pain a corporate organism seeks to avoid
Also notice by regulatory agencies, which can, legally, impose some fairly hefty fines, even if they don’t usually do so. (The company I worked at said, for some failures, up to $50K per day per incident – we really didn’t want to Be Noticed that way!)
21. Yet not one of these people has come forward and said “you know what, Jon, I shouldn’t have attacked you, let’s be friends.”
No, they haven’t. Because JDA is an asshat, and seems bound and determined to always be an asshat. It doesn’t matter how “successful” you become, if you are an asshat, people won’t want to be friends with you.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS – Happy Birthday, @Steve Davidson!
(13) I HAVE A LITTLE LIST. Not only have I heard of these, but a few of them are some of my favorites of the year! 😀 And this list reminds me, I need to get Tomorrow’s Kin (I enjoyed the novella it’s based on).
@Various: I’m trying to figure out WTH JDA is “winning” (his word) – certainly not friends, and he’s influencing people negatively, ISTM.
21) JDA seems to be one of those imaginary friends.
I hadn’t heard of JDA until he posted on Baycon’s Facebook feed, and within a matter of hours, reading only his own words, I came to the conclusion he was an asshat and best avoided. Nothing has happened since to change that.
21) I guess all this stuff is one hundred percent true in the alternate reality where JDA is the leading Hispanic voice in science fiction.
5) The best paragraph to me:
19) At this point I regard the YA dystopias of the 90s and 21st century as not so much fantasies oriented to the teenage mind, But as thinly disguised warnings and predictions about what was going to happen. No wonder millennials are harshed on so harshly.
9) Personally, I think it’s not SF, but it’s definitely sci-fi.
@ Rose Embolism:
Yeah, reading apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic fiction in the 80s felt more like “this is all too probable” and the dystopias were merely welcome escapism from the near-certain conviction that firey (fiery? both look weird) death would soon be upon us.
How odd that JDA neglects to mention his one sided feud with Marvel Comics.
19) “Their brains are very responsive to emotionally arousing stimuli,” he explains.
Does this seem patronising and stupid to anyone else? Although I suppose “it’s a brain thing” is a more palatable explanation for some than “it’s a reasonable response to the state of the world, for which we are responsible”.
Post Birthday Crotchety Curmudgeoning.
21): He’s not even an asshat. He’s just a jerk seeking attention in an emotionally inappropriate way.
@Kendall. Thank you.
19): I think it more likely that dystopian stuff appeals because their brains are not fully matured yet, and the areas of their brains that haven’t matured are those involving impulse control and logical decision making.
9): Of course it isn’t science fiction. If it were, it wouldn’t be any good. (Not that it is, but the audience majority skews towards adolescents with immature brains.)
19): It occurs to me that “Why, Eh?” must be the most popular genre in The Great White North.
21) I’m surprised he didn’t claim to have Tiger Blood.
Funny, the last comment on JDA’s “I DESERVE an award” post is this:
“You *used* to be a nice guy. Then you embraced hatred and ‘rhetoric’/lying and misdirection and alt-anything to pretend that things are going your way. You’re trying to fake it until you make it instead of putting in the work needed. I hate seeing this.”
Further…the “muting” of his opposition isn’t due to his actions or a change of heart, it’s due to people no longer bothering to swat at a gnat.
Having finished my ongoing ghastly self-imposed chore, I decided to cleanse my palate by writing up my thoughts on Under the Pendulum Sun. Seriously, that one is worth taking a look at. (The book, that is. Not my review.)
(3) I’ve been meaning to mention a couple of collections that I read this year that are worthy of wider consideration.
The first was Aliens: Bug Hunt; an anthology of stories set in the world of Alien/Aliens. As might be expected, the stories tend towards the dark/horror end of the world. There were a couple of standouts early in the book. Brian Keene’s entry was also notable.
The stories became fairly repetitive. Marines get sent to a world. It turns out that the evil corporation knew that some sort of aggressive alien life form was already there….waiting. Sometimes the Marines win…sometimes they don’t. Rinse, lather, repeat.
At some point in the book, the idea started creeping up in the back of my mind that perhaps this sort of thing happened often enough that the Marines shouldn’t really be surprised when it happens.
The second is Evil is a Matter of Perspective. This anthology is populated by villains that have a good reason for their villainy. In some cases, it is a good person that undergoes a bad experience and comes out the other end with a skewed perspective. In other cases, it is a person that does really bad things for some pretty good reasons. I picked up a couple of new authors whose work I’d like to sample. Brian Stavely’s piece is particularly well done, IMHO, with a fully conflicted central character who is both villain and heroine in one.
(21) I generally skip JDA related items. However, I have to question his expectations for his Patreon campaign given that as of a couple hours ago it only had 7 backers.
(5) From the article:
The end of capitalism will be the end of the world. Inefficient allocation of resources creates more poverty/hunger/etc. The rising influence of capitalism had dramatically reduced global poverty.
But this is from Buzzfeed, so no surprise on it being published there.
Regards,
Dann
(10) Monolith Monsters is a surprisingly good movie with a not so good name. I could see it being remade. Someone get in touch with Guillermo del Toro or Peter Jackson.
Also, still waiting for a movie of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang based on Ian Fleming’s book and not whatever that was we got.
Good King Pixel Scroll looked out on the file Glyer
(21) Ugh. JDA may actually be more disgusting than his hero, VD. I need a shower after reading his lies.
@Dann,
Just looked at JDA’s Patreon page and bounced off the second sentence of the overview: “These next couple years are going to be super exciting to follow my creative journey in journalism, science fiction and comics.”
@Soon Lee
Sort of why I usually skip items involving his own bad self whenever and wherever I encounter them.
Regards,
Dann
Jack Lint: In case you didn’t know, Peter Jackson does have the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the movie.
https://flic.kr/p/r8mM6R
I came to the conclusion a few months ago that JDA is a internet stalker. The only reason he hasn’t gotten the same treatment that other obvious stalkers get is that he’s not very good at it. I’m hoping at some point people recognize what he is and use the mechanisms that have been developed to exclude abuse personalities from the community.
Historically, capitalism has created incredible wealth and incredible immiseration. It’s apologists ask that we ignore that it arises through the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and the destruction of the commons, modes of dispossession that it repeatedly returns to in different forms in response to the forms of informal and formal resistance to its domination. We have the capacity of organizing a different and better system.
@ Robert Wood
I will categorically acknowledge the problems inherent within capitalism. Although I disagree that slavery falls within that range.
Capitalism is a poor system of economics…..except when compared with every other economic system envisioned or attempted by humanity.
Regards,
Dann
Dann, Historically it does and ties into the role of cotton in launching the industrial revolution. There’s a lot of scholarship on the issue, but here’s one article among many. https://www.thenation.com/article/capitalism-and-slavery/
Dann:
Not really. Do a comparison with the scandinavian countries and you can find that their systems of social democratic governance works much, much better. Capitaism has a bad track record in health care, working conditions and poverty.
You know, the alternatives aren’t capitalism, dictatorship or communism.
@Jack Lint
The Monolith Monsters is indeed a very fine movie. A local TV station regularly showed it late at night.
JDA is attempting to troll me on FB.
He and feckless followers are disparaging Amazing Stories in an attempt to “get my goat”.
FYI. Not a farmer. No goat.
Have blocked him on FB. Lets see where this goes next.
Perhaps the demonstration of how little he cares about your opinion will take the form of following/tagging you/tweeting at you (literally) dozens of times on social media; harassing people and organizations associated with or mentioned by you; getting his followers to follow his lead on the first two; e-mailing you invitations to blurb him, to be on podcasts with him, to be “nice” to him because he has a long memory, to have him do volunteer work for you, and to have lunch with him until you say stop or I’ll contact a lawyer, and then reacting to the stop message by photoshopping your image into “memes,” filming video rants about you, and constantly referencing you in blog posts and on social media.
@Cat. I presume this is a litany of your experience. Sorry for that.
If so…water off a ducks back.
I still have no goats.
@JJ: I was staying most of a mile from the convention center, and was IIRC the first person inside the hall the day after the fires. YLMV.
heh. I checked twitter. He’s already starting.
@ Cat, I saw portions of that harassment campaign and there should be no tolerance for that sort of behavior.
oh. too bad. according to JDA since my twitter followers are lower than his, I apparently won this round because I used calling him a fugghead as a marketing ploy.
Either he is deliberately misunderstanding “fugghead” (“racist attack on hispanics”)
or he has no clue about fanspeak, which would not be surprising.
Check the website: we’ve got a great hispanic following and have never been accused of being racist, a charge I deny.
JDA: “Fugghead” means, basically, a lousy fan. Someone no one wants to spend any time with because they are annoying, ill-mannered, clueless…
After watching the video and hearing this guy claim he wants to help Paul Weimer because Paul obviously has insecurity issues, I get it. I really do…a pure example of assuming that everyone else has the same issues he does.
My last post on this subject on File 770. Sorry Mike. I’ll not bring it up again until the next Pixel Scroll with a JDA item in it.
Hampus Eckerman says Not really. Do a comparison with the scandinavian countries and you can find that their systems of social democratic governance works much, much better. Capitaism has a bad track record in health care, working conditions and poverty.
Errrr social democratic governance is a political system which is intrinsically wedded to capitalism in the case of the scandinavian countries. So far it’s worked there but any number of things could undermine it such as declining oil revenues or an aging population requiring more medical inputs on a decreasing number of younger, less costly workers.
I has this discussion with the author of a book called Viking Economics as I believe that the scandinavian countries use a different manner of controlling medical costs as they’re embedded in cultures that have a much stronger role of the national governments in those systems.
@Dann. While capitalism is the best form of economic organization currently, there is no reason to imagine that humans will never come up with anything better- eventually its bound to happen.
Jack Lint: As an owner of the original CCBB hardcover (with the marvelous illustrations) since it was new, I’m also hoping for a successful dramatization of the story in Fleming’s book, not neglecting the fudge recipe on the last page.
Capitalism is only a successful system when deliberately and consciously regulated heavily against its own excesses. To leave it unbridled is to literally have people dead in the streets.
Of course, one thing I learned in high school about communism in Russia is that one of its more successful stretches (pre-Stalin and his monstrosity) was a stretch where they opened up communism to a few more capitalist concepts, which strongly suggests unbridled communism does the same.
I am not an economist but what I get from this is that there’s no system humans have come up with that doesn’t require counterbalancing elements to prevent humans from turning it into its own worst self.
@Dann have you considered Iphinomeism wherein all the resources are given to me lest I make THE DISAPPOINTED FACE.
In return I wear a cheerful expression while distributing tea and cakes.
Iphinome: have you considered Iphinomeism wherein all the resources are given to me lest I make THE DISAPPOINTED FACE. In return I wear a cheerful expression while distributing tea and cakes.
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. 😀
Lenora Rose notes sagely I am not an economist but what I get from this is that there’s no system humans have come up with that doesn’t require counterbalancing elements to prevent humans from turning it into its own worst self.
Quite so. It’s also worth noting that capitalism has a number of different working practices as do our political systems. All of them have points at which as you note that they can and often do turn into their worst selves.
@Dann: I picked up Evil Is a Matter of Perspective for Courtney Schafer’s story about a villain from her “Shattered Sigil” trilogy. I haven’t read any of the others yet (yet! I do plan to, at some point), but I wonder how many are like this – a story about a character from a book/series. Anyway, I’ll make a note to try Stavely’s next – thanks.
Cat Eldridge:
It is also intriniscally wedded to socialism. Social democracy is not capitalism. It is what we call a blended economy.
Also, only Norway has oil revenues. And the agibg population problem also means healthier people who can work more and with increased production. The scandinavian countries has the highest part of the population in their workforce because of the wellfare system.
And yes, the scandinavian contries stand out from the US with regards to healthcare, because they have much less beauracracy which keeps the costs down. Also, fewer private hospitals means that the most expensive procedurenis not always used. And law demands that prescriptions for medicine should always be for the cheapest alternatives.
Sad to say, Sweden is going the wrong way here with regards to beauracracy.