Incidentally, when I was a “precocious” small child in the
mid-to-late 90s The Lord of The Rings was the presumptive
ur-text I was implicitly supposed to read to prove I could handle a long
complicated book
I read it through once when I was six or something (I have genuinely
forgotten what age kids learn to read) and also happen to be a
completely fucked up adult, The Hobbit is a far superior and
more memorable work and everybody involved should have left things with
that
Also, one tends to get the impression that I moved on (without,
unfortunately, becoming obscenely wealthy) to if not greener pastures
then at least more sophisticated ones, and perhaps that’s a factor in
the disparity between my and Peter Thiel’s incomes and personalities
(five minutes later I read further into the article and find that
this thesis is specifically referred to therein)
It's not Tolkien's fault they wouldn't publish his fantasy world-myth and forced him to publish a short, 8 month travelogue therein and I won't take this slander sitting down.
Eg, "World’s Best SF 1970” which contains such uplifting, futurist stories as “Your Haploid Heart” by James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon) (A planet contains two species, one of which brutalises the other. Turns out the two are actually the two genders of a single species.) It also contains that well known uplifting novella (ahem): “A boy and his dog” by Harlan Ellison. Those are just the two stories I vaguely recognise from that collection. I very much doubt Le Guin’s contribution is going to be spaceships & boy astronauts.
(The Hugo in 1970 went to “The Left Hand of Darkness” by Le Guin as well.)
These guys are about re-writing history in order to erase the SF that they don’t like, because it questions their worldview.
For some reason people think 70s sf (which was fucking weird, i have a dutch story of a guy fucking a huge spider in a short story collection somewhere) with 40-50s science fiction. Which was a lot more pulpy (and pretty sexist, looking at you doc ee smith with your 'women cant become lensmen').
/u/MarxBroshevik will note that this article quotes Peter Thiel using
the phrase “machinery of freedom” without apparently the author knowing
that it almost certainly comes from the title of David Friedman’s weird
book
I’ve personally banned MarxBro multiple times, but he gets an out these days because he caught David Friedman lying in the book referenced above and in the SSC comment section
Start [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20200217140556/https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/18/book-review-inventing-the-future/#comment-732881) I think.
Learning that Thiel has spent the pandemic holidaying in NZ, getting
to live normally while the rest of us wear masks and stay at home for
fear of getting our loved ones sick…
Not gonna lie, it kinda ruins my day.
It’s such a perfect example of what being a billionaire means - you
can advocate for policies that strip-mine your country for your own
benefit, then if that results in, eg; the government not being able to
competently manage a crisis… Why, you just go to another country!
Literally zero consequences for you no matter what you do or how big a
piece of shit you are.
I feel that, it seems to be the beginning of a new reality. And yet, good luck discussing that in many spaces online. "Yeah, fuck globalists! The unaccountable ultra-wealthy that set the policy agenda for their profit or amusement with no impact to themselves! Oh wait, you just meant 'jews'...god dammit..."
why is it so fucking difficult for the conspiracy theory set to consider that maybe there doesn't need to be an ethnic/religious dimension, maybe extreme wealth disparity on its own is enough to fuck things up. maddening.
It could have just been a generic retro-futuristic device in the atompunk style (which is Fallout's style). But it's weirdly on the nose nonetheless, given this is the man who sold people flamethrowers and is [covering the country with his solar panels.](https://observer.com/2019/12/elon-musk-solar-panels-blanket-united-states/)
I'm also fairly certain he thinks of himself as a Mr. House, but he's much more [Fantastic.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic)
That there is a laser in the background (at or from the planet) was what made me make the connection.
And as his new satellite venture is increasing the risk of having us all stuck on earth permanently (I forgot the name of the cascade effect of space junk which keeps hitting each other), he certainly is mr fantastic.
If the villain in a sci-fi novel named their big data company Palantir I would have found it a bit on the nose.
Incidentally, when I was a “precocious” small child in the mid-to-late 90s The Lord of The Rings was the presumptive ur-text I was implicitly supposed to read to prove I could handle a long complicated book
I read it through once when I was six or something (I have genuinely forgotten what age kids learn to read) and also happen to be a completely fucked up adult, The Hobbit is a far superior and more memorable work and everybody involved should have left things with that
Also, one tends to get the impression that I moved on (without, unfortunately, becoming obscenely wealthy) to if not greener pastures then at least more sophisticated ones, and perhaps that’s a factor in the disparity between my and Peter Thiel’s incomes and personalities
(five minutes later I read further into the article and find that this thesis is specifically referred to therein)
[deleted]
/u/MarxBroshevik will note that this article quotes Peter Thiel using the phrase “machinery of freedom” without apparently the author knowing that it almost certainly comes from the title of David Friedman’s weird book
Learning that Thiel has spent the pandemic holidaying in NZ, getting to live normally while the rest of us wear masks and stay at home for fear of getting our loved ones sick…
Not gonna lie, it kinda ruins my day.
It’s such a perfect example of what being a billionaire means - you can advocate for policies that strip-mine your country for your own benefit, then if that results in, eg; the government not being able to competently manage a crisis… Why, you just go to another country! Literally zero consequences for you no matter what you do or how big a piece of shit you are.
Current Affairs is going a bit neoreactionary, damn that is a long post. ;)
E: is that Euclid’s C-Finder in Musks hands?