Culture

The Alarms Made Us Deaf

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I give up on cautionary Science Fiction.

I was having a discussion with my good friend and author Serdar about cautionary SF. The more we discussed it the more I realized we haven’t listened to it, and have become numb to it.

We’re heading towards not-AI-but-close in control of techbros while everyone has our data. The Forbin Project and assorted Cyberpunk novels warned us, and no one paid attention.

Ecological disaster? Been done. What, am I going to read another book or watch another movie, maybe get depressed at a rewatch of Silent Running? I can just look outside, I mean I’m in California?

Political meltdown? Been done, albeit crappily many times, over and over again. No one listened, and a few people think social collapse means we all wear more leather and ride motorcycles.

People sounded the alarm in fiction over and over again and it’s gotten old. The old messages are still relevant in all the classics anyway. We’ve become numb because everyone said what had to be said, and they keep saying it, and worse not in new ways.

Besides, for a cautionary tale I can just read the news. We’re in a constant life lesson we’re pretty bad at learning.

So you want to save the world, change the world, protect the world. Good, someone has to because too many politicians are ignoring the world burning down and would-be geniuses are creating cell phones for hamsters. You’re probably not doing it with cautionary SF as, well, it didn’t work and the messages are oversaturated. That’s if people even listened as opposed to deciding your Hellish Futurescape is cool.

Maybe try a vision instead.

Give me fiction of a better world and the struggle to get there.

Give me a dream of better, of kinder, of smarter, of what we deserve. Give me something to fire my feelings and my imagination and my soul. Kindle a flame with your words and your images and your dream – and let me share that dream.

Give me a blueprint, something, to get there. A signpost might be all I need, or a compass, or a basic map. Set me off, I’ll figure the specifics on the way there.

Yes, maybe give me caution. But do it in a way that keeps me on the path and heading for that future.

We heard all the alarms. They’re still going off. We can’t hear them very well.

But show me where to walk to a place worth going to, and maybe I’ll hear them again, warnings on my journey to something worth traveling to.

Steven Savage

Light The Ugliness On Fire To Warm Ourselves

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

The latest news about our oncoming future of AI generated soulless media has got me and my creative friends talking. We’re swearing, too, but the conversation is quite intelligent between the occasional profanities

My good friend Serdar notes in an excellent post that you have to drive out ugliness with beauty. If you keep showing off the ugliness, the awfulness of things, it creates pathologies, a tunnel of crap, even if its in mockery. Trauma tourism of our culture is still traumatic after all, and we hunger for actual good stuff – so make something good damn it to squeeze out the ugly.

I agree with him for the most part, but sometimes you can use the ugly.

Now in my own work, even that which responds to trends (like some worldbuilding books), the goal is to get people to write good things. I want something that adds to the wonderful of the world.

But you’ve also noticed some of my sarcasm or parody here, or in my fiction. It occurs in some of the more experimental art and writing I do (currently) under pen names. There is a part of my work that uses the terrible and sad things of the world as fuel, and I think that is valid – when done right.

There is value in mockery, and parody, and response. From Mark Twain to Dave Barry, Terry Pratchet to Chuang-Tzu, people have made works both timeless and calling out people and organizations and ideas that need to be skewered. Sometimes you create beauty by giving the ugliness a good drubbing- hell, no small amount of Punk music fits this category.

The problem is this is really hard to do. If you’re going to make beauty from ugliness, then you best make sure you’re up to the task and you want to do it. Not everyone is, and that’s fine – for instance Serdar and I have different backgrounds and inclinations. Or in short, I’m the sarcastic and parodic one, meaning our friendship is sort of a Road movie that happens very slow.

As the sarcastic one, here’s what I think makes a response-to-ugliness work as actual, positive, creative work.

First, it has to timeless in its own ways. There’s little value in speaking to the event of the moment without context or depth. The more the thing you’ve decided to “take on” is connected to the big picture, the better. I recall an essay in the Chuang-Tzu on warriors (albeit one clearly written by one of his followers) that had me outright laughing at the end, even though the tale was perhaps two thousand years old.

Secondly, a work of mockery or parody has to be relevant, and this is the paradox that affects many a writer. You have to know the subject matter enough to make what you create more than just saying “see how dumb that is!” I mean I can watch many videos mocking an unwisely-constructed electric truck that seems designed to kill people. But in-depth understanding is valuable because then I understand.

Third, such work has to be human. Ridiculing something or someone is easy, any bully can do it. I want to understand people, their reactions, their experiences. Ever read a good essay or book on the economic impacts of some horrible government choice on real people and felt it? That’s what you want. That’s what art does – it gets the mind and heart going.

Finally, it has to be actually good. You can’t rely on someone else being terrible to carry your work. I learned this lesson from podcasts and youtube videos that did critiques. The truly good ones have good hosts, providing smart analysis, and were people I’d listen to or watch if they spoke about good things.

If you create beauty out of ugliness, you need depth to really do something that will squeeze out the ugliness. For all he took on, the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s books are things of beauty, even when addressing issues from racism to economics. Any ugliness is but fuel for beauty – in the right hands.

If you can’t do that or don’t want to, then fine! We all do our parts to make the world a more beautiful place – and that’s needed today more than ever.

Steven Savage

Take Some Responsibility

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You probably heard the news: Air Canada had to pay up for something an “AI” chatbot said. This story saddens me as I love flying on Air Canada. Honestly in my trips up there the flight is often part of the fun.

Basically a guy asked an Air Canada chatbot on advice on canceling due to bereavement, it gave him advice on refunds that was wrong. He followed the advice and of course when he had to cancel, he didn’t get his refund, and made a small claims complaint to the appropriate body. Air Canada argued – seriously – the chatbot is a legally distinct entity and that the guy shouldn’t have trusted the advice, but followed a link provided by the chatbot which had gotten things wrong.

Obviously, that didn’t fly, excuse the really stupid pun.

As an IT professional who’s career is “older than One Piece” let me weigh in.

I work in medical technology (indeed, it’s my plan to do this for the rest of my career). We vet everything we install or set up. We regularly review everything we set up. We have support systems to make sure everything is working. This is, of course, because you screw up anything medical and bad things happen.

Also it’s because someone that goes into medical anything is usually pretty responsible. We IT folks are in the mix everyday and know the impact of our job. We also work with – and sometimes are or were – doctors and nurses and other medical professionals who get it.

I love working in this environment. If this appeals to you, I can honestly say check out working in medicine, medical research, and education. It’s awesome.

Know what? Other people using technology can and should take the same level of responsibility.

Technology is a choice. What you use, how you implement it, how you expose people to it, all of that is a choice. You built it or paid for it or whatever, you take responsibility if it goes wrong, be it a life or someone deserving a refund.

If the product isn’t what you thought? Then those who made it owes you an apology, wad of cash, corporate dissolution, whatever. But either way someone takes responsibility, because technology is a choice.

We’ve certainly had enough of moving fast and breaking things, which really seems to just result in enshitification and more and more ways to be irresponsible.

Besides, reputation is involved, and if nothing else saying “we don’t care of our technology on a website goes wrong” is going to make people question everything else you do. I mean, if you were on an Air Canada plane after hearing about this “sorry, not our fault” approach how safe are you going to feel?

Let’s try to be responsible here.

Steven Savage