Yet another novel I will no longer write • Hacker News Board

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#171

Post by wken » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

yeahthi999 wrote: post #29

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

> The survivors/protagonists of the zombie plague are the viewpoint the audience is intended to empathize with, but their response to the shambling horde is as brutal and violent as any plantation owner's reaction to their slaves rising, and it speaks to a peculiarly American cognitive disorder, elite panic. Elite panic is the phenomenon by which rich and/or privileged people imagine that in times of chaos all social…

All media should be viewed as satire It’s so emotionally compressed into one vibe and hyper stylized visually how anyone can sit down with the intent of making real sense of it is bizarre. It’s highly customized to satisfy a target audience. Not generalized like so much other media. Go interact with real people, or create your own. I’ve been curating a space opera for a decade. 3,000+ typed pages. I have no desire to…

If all media were satire, we would call it satire and not media.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#172

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

Applejinx wrote: post #159

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the default. For most of history that was how it worked; anyone who could afford to do so built a secured enclosure and hired military-grade defenses. We've managed to establish more peaceful norms, where most people's threat models don't need to include roving bands of soldiers or brigands on the highways. But these norms aren't infinitely resilient, and can be broken by sustained periods of disorder, as we'v…

Define 'afford to do so'. If you mean 'anyone who has exploited the community around them to the point that they themselves come off as a predator and danger to the community', this would very likely explain why they could 'afford' to build a castle, but might also shed some light on WHY they might practically require a castle, or soldiers.

If you mean 'anyone who has exploited the community around them to the point that they themselves come off as a predator and danger to the community'

This is the basic trope. Many of the Kulaks were simply peasants who knew how to farm better than their neighbors.

Funny, but the same justification is used against (often non-white) store owners in disadvantaged neighborhoods, where their only "crime" was simply running a store in that neighborhood. Some genuinely good people who create value are genuinely creating value. That also doesn't mean they're exempt from receiving delusional accusations of exploitation. By the same token, there are some exploiters as well. However such judgments can only be just on the basis of individual actions.

As always, we should be on the look out for those who use overly simplistic and reductionist prejudicial assumptions to make accusations. Over time, they often turn out to be history's villains.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#173

Post by golergka » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 8:53 AM UTC

Gravityloss wrote: post #155

Gibbon1 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the Subgenius advice for the faithful. In the end times don't be a sap holed up waiting for defend yourself against marauding gangs. Join a marauding gang as soon as possible.

I guess creating an apocalypse simulator game where you could play it very differently would be very hard to create (agent simulation) and might not be fun at all to play...

This War of Mine already has this kind of moral choice in gameplay, right from the start.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#174

Post by marcusverus » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #44

jhbadger wrote: post #2

I just don't get the multiple people saying "Zombie epidemics as a topic are over because of COVID-19". They might be over just because there's been a glut of them, but in no way, shape, or form does the current pandemic resemble a zombie pandemic.

Zombie epidemics are over because the genre has been done to death (!), and is now simply boring. I was very disappointed that Game of Thrones veered into just another zombie show.

I think the real issue was that they got out in front of GRRM, at which point the show was essentially mediocre fan fiction.

GRRM's novels will deal with the same undead hoard, but I highly doubt they will read like 'just another zombie book'. That's what separates legendary artists from the nameless commercial hacks--the ability to take something that has been done to death and make it feel fresh and exciting.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#175

Post by rkuykendall-com » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #111

rapind wrote: post #53

What always bugged me about zombie movies is that no one seems to figure out a way to take advantage of it beyond total anarchy. I would expect enterprising individuals to see zombies as a potential tool. Like maybe figure out what makes them tick (they never seem to possess intelligent thought) and leverage them for a labour force or army. What are they fuelled by? Can they be taught to perform complex tasks through…

It's not really the point of a zombie movie, or any movie or story containing magical, free-energy beings/things/spells/doodads for that matter. It's just an accidental consequence of the magic/fantasy. For zombies the point (and the plot) should always revolve around the existential dread of relentless, never-ending hordes of beings who want to eat your brains. It's like the old story about the very best thing super…

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-07-13

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#176

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #108

shoo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glasshouse is great. I've enjoyed every Stross novel I've read, and Glasshouse was the first one, after stumbling across a newspaper review when it was released. Both the Laundry Files & Merchant Princes / Empire games series are also great fun. You can get a feel for Stross' Laundry Files series from: "A Colder War" http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm (not Laundry Files, but in the ballpark) "Equoid"…

Merchant Princess started off as "secret royal heritage" fantasy - the first 3 books (which were later recombined into one larger book, IIRC) were closer to alternate-universe fantasy than the subsequent books, which are more sci-fi/[rot13-spoiler]nygreangr-uvfgbel[/rot13-spoiler]/wormhole-opera? Also, I need to catch up on the series

Stross's blog posts on the series are fascinating reads. The short badly paraphrased tale is that Stross wanted to diversify his publishers but was contractually obligated to give sci-fi books to his first publisher, so he pitched a "fantasy" book. Stross being Stross though, he can't actually write a fantasy novel so it was stealth sci-fi, because of course it was.

He wrote the first book in the 1000+ page "door stop" form common to a lot of "high fantasy" mega-authors like Stephen King, Neal Stephenson, GRRM, Robert Jordan, et al, because Stross wrongly assumed that was the intended form factor of a fantasy novel (because it wasn't his native genre and when you do look at bookshelves they are rather dominated by the mega-books), and the publisher did exactly what JRR Tolkien's publisher did for Lord of the Rings and said it was way too long for a first book in a new series, as that would be expensive if it didn't sell well, and chopped it (somewhat roughly) into three books. (So the combination of the first three books was actually recombination into something more resembling their original manuscript form.)

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#177

Post by devdas » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #112

TeMPOraL wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not all the time, though. And to drive the point home even more: many high-status politicians in Western countries have contracted COVID-19 and it's uncertain how many more will, and how many will die. Also: uncertainty creates a panic of its own.

Many high-status politicians are clueless fools with no idea how to avoid infection, or how to minimise the risk of contagion within their immediate circle. Most won't die unless they're in a vulnerable age group. But they will spread the infection to friends, family, and colleagues, some of whom will die. The median age in the House of Lords is 70. As for elite panic - armed gangs are already a thing in the UK and U…

That small minority sounds to me like the NRA types.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#178

Post by devdas » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #79

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

> The survivors/protagonists of the zombie plague are the viewpoint the audience is intended to empathize with, but their response to the shambling horde is as brutal and violent as any plantation owner's reaction to their slaves rising, and it speaks to a peculiarly American cognitive disorder, elite panic. Elite panic is the phenomenon by which rich and/or privileged people imagine that in times of chaos all social…

In the US there is the well-known phenomenon that during big catastrophes the media will concentrate on looting, as if this was a big problem and not the reasonable response to closed stores, full of products that people need.

Specifically, back people loot.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/b...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hurricane-katrina-looters/

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#179

Post by panarky » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

rpiguy wrote: post #20

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

> The survivors/protagonists of the zombie plague are the viewpoint the audience is intended to empathize with, but their response to the shambling horde is as brutal and violent as any plantation owner's reaction to their slaves rising, and it speaks to a peculiarly American cognitive disorder, elite panic. Elite panic is the phenomenon by which rich and/or privileged people imagine that in times of chaos all social…

His observation is wrong. In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Witness Africa, South America, Burma, and the middle Eastern countries in which we have removed the “dictators.” Asia after WW2 was different because the West essentially sponsored state corporate Facism in Japan and Korea until they had 30-50 years to evolve into something resembling a true democracy. Even the term “elite pa…

Here's a contemporary example of elite panic cynically deployed to sway an election.

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun released an ad warning that "in uncertain times like these," it’s important to protect yourself against "looting hordes from Atlanta" along with video of him carrying a rifle.

https://twitter.com/mbaram/status/1247597527987339269

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#180

Post by bsanr » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #153

bsanr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that this behavior doesn't come out of some inborn bloodthirst, but rather a scenario akin to, "We're taking you're stuff." "I'll kill you if you try." "Well then we must defend ourselves." Inevitably, stuff is appropriated and the mob, in its losses, learns to pull the trigger first. "Society" is this but both sides knowing when to stop before the shooting begins.

I don't think it works like that at all. I think the cognitive process is more like "they have all the stuff, and we have nothing. They have it because they're stealing it from us. And they know we're starving and they don't care, so they're existential enemies to us, and they deserve to die". Thus the process is completely one-sided, and there is very little the other side can do.

I can see how someone on the other side would view things this way, deaf as they are to the protest of the lower half of the wealth pyramid. However, if the conversation is one-sided, it's not because poor people are quiet, but because they've been rendered voiceless by the inattention and apathy of the upper classes.

They'll still be surprised when the people who have been posting guillotine memes for half a decade start killing rich people. There was always an explicit, if ignored, desire to avoid that by having the system change before it was necessary.