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May. 2nd, 2012 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo as you guys know, I am currently writing a paper on archiving and the apocalypse. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote a book about apocalypses that involves a subplot about a guy trying to archive books! So I borrowed batyatoon's copy of Lucifer's Hammer last week.
BATYA: Here you go! I've marked everywhere that that subplot pops up so you can just go in and find it.
BECCA: Thanks! But now that I have it I feel like I should probably read the whole thing. I want to get the full context, and it makes me feel silly to read only bits of books, so . . .
BATYA: Um, are you sure? It's pretty long, and there's a lot of kind of cringeworthy parts that will probably bother you, so you really don't have to --
BECCA'S BRAIN: WELL NOW IT'S A CHALLENGE. I WILL READ THIS BOOK!
. . . Batya, I'm so sorry. You did your best to warn me, and now I'm going to publicly complain about this book that you lent me (which will indeed be very useful for my paper and which I much appreciate the loan of!)
Because here's the thing. Lucifer's Hammer is a book about how a meteor hits the Earth and the apocalypse happens and everyone does terrible things in the name of survival and we should all very much appreciate our nice technology while we have it. And I'm fine with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle having an agenda to do with appreciating technology! I like technology! I love my hot showers and my working electricity as much as they do!
But when one large piece of your pro-technology narrative argument can be boiled down to "Technology is great! It will allow us to reinvent mustard gas, nerve gas, and napalm to use to win the decisive war against that army of angry black inner-city cannibals and other unhelpful anti-technology hippies over there!"
Well, then it makes me want to go start blowing up every single one of your beloved nuclear power plants just out of spite.
Because -- even leaving the terrible racism aside! Even leaving the sexism aside, which is also pretty bad, and if I never have to see an example of "when the apocalypse hits we will instantly jettison feminism and women will instinctually gravitate to the men who can protect them best" ever again it will still be too soon for me! -- even leaving all that aside, "BECAUSE WE ARE WILLING TO EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY, WE CAN REINVENT MUSTARD GAS AND NAPALM!" is, hands-down, THE WORST argument in favor of technology I have ever heard. THE WORST.
It makes me furious, and, you know what, it makes me buy a grim worldview, but not in the way I think Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle want me to -- not the one where human beings do terrible things to survive but they're still surviving and that's pretty neat, go us. I get that's what they're going for, but no. If that's your argument, if we're never going to do any better than that . . . then yeah. We don't deserve to be here. Go ahead and burn it down.
(Fortunately in my heart of hearts I still do believe human beings are better than this, so as a post-apocalyptic palate cleanser expect a long and picspammy post about the awesome ladies of 7 Seeds sometime soon. I know no one will care besides me but it will MAKE ME FEEL BETTER.)
batyatoon's copy of Lucifer's Hammer last week. BATYA: Here you go! I've marked everywhere that that subplot pops up so you can just go in and find it.
BECCA: Thanks! But now that I have it I feel like I should probably read the whole thing. I want to get the full context, and it makes me feel silly to read only bits of books, so . . .
BATYA: Um, are you sure? It's pretty long, and there's a lot of kind of cringeworthy parts that will probably bother you, so you really don't have to --
BECCA'S BRAIN: WELL NOW IT'S A CHALLENGE. I WILL READ THIS BOOK!
. . . Batya, I'm so sorry. You did your best to warn me, and now I'm going to publicly complain about this book that you lent me (which will indeed be very useful for my paper and which I much appreciate the loan of!)
Because here's the thing. Lucifer's Hammer is a book about how a meteor hits the Earth and the apocalypse happens and everyone does terrible things in the name of survival and we should all very much appreciate our nice technology while we have it. And I'm fine with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle having an agenda to do with appreciating technology! I like technology! I love my hot showers and my working electricity as much as they do!
But when one large piece of your pro-technology narrative argument can be boiled down to "Technology is great! It will allow us to reinvent mustard gas, nerve gas, and napalm to use to win the decisive war against that army of angry black inner-city cannibals and other unhelpful anti-technology hippies over there!"
Well, then it makes me want to go start blowing up every single one of your beloved nuclear power plants just out of spite.
Because -- even leaving the terrible racism aside! Even leaving the sexism aside, which is also pretty bad, and if I never have to see an example of "when the apocalypse hits we will instantly jettison feminism and women will instinctually gravitate to the men who can protect them best" ever again it will still be too soon for me! -- even leaving all that aside, "BECAUSE WE ARE WILLING TO EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY, WE CAN REINVENT MUSTARD GAS AND NAPALM!" is, hands-down, THE WORST argument in favor of technology I have ever heard. THE WORST.
It makes me furious, and, you know what, it makes me buy a grim worldview, but not in the way I think Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle want me to -- not the one where human beings do terrible things to survive but they're still surviving and that's pretty neat, go us. I get that's what they're going for, but no. If that's your argument, if we're never going to do any better than that . . . then yeah. We don't deserve to be here. Go ahead and burn it down.
(Fortunately in my heart of hearts I still do believe human beings are better than this, so as a post-apocalyptic palate cleanser expect a long and picspammy post about the awesome ladies of 7 Seeds sometime soon. I know no one will care besides me but it will MAKE ME FEEL BETTER.)
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Date: 2012-05-02 08:26 pm (UTC)picspamreview Tomes and Talismans? :D???picspaaaaaaamno subject
Date: 2012-05-02 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-02 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-02 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-02 09:05 pm (UTC)(Also about the world where Jerry Pournelle shuts up about everything forever, can we live there now please? Niven's not so bad by himself.)
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Date: 2012-05-02 09:07 pm (UTC)(I've never read anything before by either -- my main association with Larry Niven is walking by his book Footfall in my local library as a kid and thinking that it said Football and was a book about football-playing aliens every single time.)
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Date: 2012-05-03 12:32 am (UTC)(... that is actually a plot point.)
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Date: 2012-05-02 09:18 pm (UTC)But it's new comics day so you get a pass while I complain about that!
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Date: 2012-05-02 09:21 pm (UTC)ALSO YEAH LOOK WHO'S TALKING :P
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Date: 2012-05-02 11:03 pm (UTC)(Not that I would be very much use when the apocalypse came.)
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Date: 2012-05-03 01:01 am (UTC)I think the actual hair-tearing-out moment came when a female character calmly demonstrates extreme badassery in blowing people up, and then, when asked what she's going to do next, says, "Well, it's a man's world now, so I guess I'm just going to have to marry an important one." WELP.
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Date: 2012-05-03 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 12:35 am (UTC)Although tbh if there actually were post-apocalypse cannibals and they actually looked like winning? Pass me the napalm. YEAH, I SAID IT, THE RING WILL GO TO GONDOR.
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Date: 2012-05-03 01:04 am (UTC)Hah, I might well grab the napalm in that scenario, I freely admit! But if I was trying to write a book to convince people that technology was great, I wouldn't . . . write that scenario . . . . (SERIOUSLY, NERVE GAS?! AUUUUUUGH!)
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Date: 2012-05-03 01:41 am (UTC)At one point I recall reading Lucifer's Hammer and The Stand back-to-back. MENTAL WHIPLASH OMG.
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Date: 2012-05-04 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 02:41 pm (UTC)BUT THEY HAVE ARCHIVES? SORT OF? WITH BOOKS IN THE SHELTERS??? DOES IT COUNT....
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Date: 2012-05-04 02:42 pm (UTC)But I think that would have to be, like, a separate chapter of a thesis. *sad* MAYBE SOMEDAY.
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Date: 2012-05-04 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 02:49 pm (UTC)