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"A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

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Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#61

Post by lucubratory »

javajosh wrote: post #51
lucubratory wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Chinese families give up their born infant babies because of gender is a racist extrapolation of sex-selective abortion, yes. It was one of the big issues I had with the book, along with some unnecessary racial slurs earlier. I don't see the fascism angle, though. What about the Mouse Army was a fascist story? I thought their story was good, aside from how the author justified the existence of this larg…

The Mouse Army was indoctrinated by lesser primers to treat Nell as a their leader. It was a rare big whiff from Stephenson, because he presented all of this uncritically. The fact that a white girl would rule a few hundred thousand chinese girls went without comment because OF COURSE she would. And I'm the last person to be sensitive to this sort of thing! The racism felt very in-your-face even at the time, and this…

Oh that's interesting, Nell isn't Chinese? Isn't she born in China? I'm sure you're right, like I said it's been years since I read the book, but my mental picture of her is certainly of a young Chinese girl. I thought it was only the abusive stepdad that was white.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#62

Post by LordDragonfang »

>With hesitation, Lin approached and said, "Grandmother, today I discovered something new about myself, something that makes me feel uncomfortable and out of place."

>The elderly painter paused and looked deeply into Lin's eyes. "Ah, young Lin," she began softly, "Much like the Formosan bear, every individual goes through stages of growth and change. These moments might seem unfamiliar and daunting, but they're a testament to your strength and the mysteries of life."

As someone who has spent a lot of time trying to get ChatGPT to generate interesting prose, this really exemplifies the sort of stilted, oblique way it has of writing, where every statement is wrapped in platitudes and it reads like a self-help book. This is especially jarring in dialogue. No one, not even characters in books, talks like that.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#63

Post by tialaramex »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #7

This isn't the first time I've seen this allusion and I feel a little crazy each time. A major but mostly implicit plot point of that book was that only the primer backed by a connection to an invested and nurturing adult was able to accomplish the goals of the project. The two that were purely automated failed. Now like, it's fiction not prophesy and you can get into various whatifs sure. But you can't dodge the fac…

They're not failed. The novel is about Nell, despite the title it's not really about the Primer, this is her story, and so we get relatively little insight into what happens to the other two recipients of the original Primer. Also, all three of the girls who receive the original Primer are interacting with humans via the Primer.

Elizabeth is interacting with ractors assigned (expensively) to the work, potentially at random although realistically that's likely to be why she ended up being recruited. Elizabeth's "failure" to use your word is that she ends up recruited into Cryptnet, about which we know nothing - we see one other individual in the story who is, supposedly a high level member of Cryptnet but denies all knowledge of it and his motives are unknown but seem perhaps good.

Fiona is interacting with her father, John Hackworth. The Primer's designer. That's what he's been doing for at least some of the time he was missing, he's her ractor, he's why Fiona's use of the Primer isn't costing much money. Fiona's "failure" is that she hooks up with Dramatis Personae, the outfit we see briefly whose true purpose is entirely unknown. Just as you might be disappointed mistakenly if you wanted your daughter to be a surgeon and she instead becomes a Nobel prize winning novelist, so Fiona's "failure" seems like a misunderstanding on your part.

Yes, Nell founds a new tribe (her Mouse Army), and is recognised by the Victorian Queen - which is perhaps a more immediately notable achievement, something likely to be written in history books, but lots of people do important things without appearing in history books. Her ractor, Miranda is her substitute mother (we're never told AFAIK what happens to Nell's actual mother, she's just written out) but while Miranda is important to Nell, there's no reason to think John is less important to Fiona.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#64

Post by gibspaulding »

cl42 wrote: post #22
geophile wrote: post #19

I loved Diamond Age. My favorite Stephenson book, by far. But the ending, the resolution of all the action, was such a letdown. Such meh. I find that this is often a problem with cyberpunk.

Do you think that's a Neal Stephenson issue? Don't get me wrong, I love his writing, but I found this to be the case with Fall too. I can see it becoming tiring if one is writing 400+ page books.

This is funny, both Fall and Diamond Age are Stephenson novels I haven't managed to get through, but of the ones I've read (and enjoyed!), the endings have been as follows:

Remade - massively stretched my suspension of disbelief.

Cryptonomicon - pretty bad.

Snow Crash - No memory, I might have blocked it out?

Anthem - maybe ok? There are two though so that's cheating.

Seven Eves - That one might have been ok, but it's possible I also blocked it out. The second half was a bit strange tbh.

To be clear, I'd still recommend all of these books. Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite pieces of fiction of all time (up there with LOTR and Three Body Problem), and Anthem is in the mix. Stephenson just sucks at endings I guess.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#65

Post by pteraspidomorph »

afterburner wrote: post #46
glial wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a well-known Stephenson issue. Here's his response when asked: https://www.reddit.com/r/nealstephenson/comments/5jjwmq/neal...

> I think Anathem does ok on that score Well, I know at least one person who's read a lot of Stephenson agrees with him on that, so maybe he's improving.

I read most of his books and I would agree too.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#66

Post by lucubratory »

maxerickson wrote: post #59
lucubratory wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You... what? Do you have like a dystopian internal headcanon for how the book ended? "And then they all tore each other to pieces shortly afterwards because they were poorly socialised, the end.", "And eventually all the young girls became addicts and wasted away doing nothing because they didn't have a strong parental figure that was human, the end.", that sort of thing?

It's been a while, but I was just referencing the events that occur in the book. They are an effective force, but they aren't actualized individuals. The primer harmed them.

They have formed into an effective military force because the Primer is designed to teach children how to deal with their life situation, and it doesn't fail at that job even when the life situation is extreme (like how the Primer understands that Nell is being abused and tries very hard to get her out of the abusive environment). The Mouse Army are in the middle of a war where WMDs are being used and they're all little girls who can't rely on anyone around them for help, so the Primer teaches them to form not just effective soldiers but an effective military force, in order to secure their escape from the war. Once they're out of the extreme situation, it will presumably teach them more normally once more, just like Nell's Primer adjusted back once Nell was out of the abusive environment.

I'm not exactly going to bat for child soldiering here, but I find the idea that the Primer harmed them very strange. The Primer saved them from dying in a horrific war where they had no allies and successfully got them out of that war.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#67

Post by the_af »

geophile wrote: post #19

I loved Diamond Age. My favorite Stephenson book, by far. But the ending, the resolution of all the action, was such a letdown. Such meh. I find that this is often a problem with cyberpunk.

> I loved Diamond Age. My favorite Stephenson book, by far. But the ending, the resolution of all the action, was such a letdown. Such meh. I find that this is often a problem with cyberpunk.

I wouldn't know about Stephenson in general, but I found that to be the case with Diamond Age: the setup was cool and intriguing, but the actual development and resolution was very disappointing.

I don't think this is the case with all cyberpunk and cyberpunk-adjacent works of scifi.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#68

Post by tialaramex »

lucubratory wrote: post #61
javajosh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mouse Army was indoctrinated by lesser primers to treat Nell as a their leader. It was a rare big whiff from Stephenson, because he presented all of this uncritically. The fact that a white girl would rule a few hundred thousand chinese girls went without comment because OF COURSE she would. And I'm the last person to be sensitive to this sort of thing! The racism felt very in-your-face even at the time, and this…

Oh that's interesting, Nell isn't Chinese? Isn't she born in China? I'm sure you're right, like I said it's been years since I read the book, but my mental picture of her is certainly of a young Chinese girl. I thought it was only the abusive stepdad that was white.

I don't think we're told Nell's ancestry in any detail, but, she's the daughter of Tequila and Bud. Tequila appears to be a typical "white trash" uneducated young woman who is living in the LT but whose ancestors are probably American or European, the discussion of the Freedom Machine (Diamond Age contraception) strongly suggests Tequila sees herself roughly this way. Bud is deliberately your generic Cyberpunk protagonist, if he has any Chinese ancestry it's unlikely he recognises or celebrates it.

Yes, the LT is in China. It's an analogous situation to Hong Kong, physically it is in China, but as its name suggests ("Leased Territories") it is controlled by outsiders, hence the anger of groups like the Fists.

Re: "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4

#70

Post by gibspaulding »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #49
mewse-hn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read Cryptonomicon like 20 years after it was relevant and I was engrossed in it until its terrible, awful, no-good ending

Yeah, it was a bit meh. But the book is so good I forgive the ending.

I barely remember the actual story in cryptonomicon, but his tangents on who fucked who in Greek mythology, how to eat cereal with a beard, how to assemble a Linux distro with such an obtuse user interface as to defeat Van Eck Phreaking, or Plato's cave are absolute gold.
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