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Top-level
Brian Marick
@alxd @jmeowmeow I found /Ministry/ somewhat disappointing, but I interpreted it rather differently: it undercut itself, but not as parody, more as tragedy. I take it that he thinks the bottom-up communal approach you approve of in the imaginary /Sustainability/ *won’t work*. You might argue that he’s wrong to assume it would fail, but that’s a different argument than the one you’re making. (1/7) 10 comments
Brian Marick
However, he also believes that won’t work either. You’re right that it’s rather glaring that they down planes, seed the atmosphere, and everyone shrugs. I suspect he *has* to handwave away the developed world’s most likely reaction because it would inevitably lead to climate catastrophe. It would be another “global war on terror” that would divert attention from the real problems, solidify existing powers, and we’d all go down fighting (against the wrong thing). (3/7)
Brian Marick
That given, the only solution is to somehow subvert the same systems that cause the problem. Use the enemy’s momentum against itself. Use the tools that caused the problem to solve the problem. That KSR’s solution feels deus ex machina, road to Damascus, Eureka!, Sidney Harris “and then a miracle occurs” cartoon — I think that’s fundamentally because he realizes the solution he’s been backed into as most plausible won’t work either. (4/7)
Brian Marick
He *wants* a solution – he’s a lover of the world, been doing ecologically-tinged fiction forever. Not permitting himself to write a bleakly pessimistic, dystopian novel like /The Sheep Look Up/ (similar in many ways, down to ecological terrorists, but which ends with the problems unsolved and the world spiraling down), he came up with the most likely solution he could see. He’s a sad figure because his best path forward is ludicrously unlikely, but his only alternative is despair. (5/7)
Brian Marick
The end of /The Sheep Look Up/: Opening the door to the visiting doctor, all set to apologize for the flour on her hands – she had been baking – Mrs. Byrne sniffed. Smoke! And if she could smell it with her heavy head cold, it must be a tremendous fire! "We ought to call the brigade!” she exclaimed. “Is it a hayrick?” “The brigade would have a long way to go,” the doctor told her curtly. "It’s from America. The wind’s blowing that way.” (6/7)
Brian Marick
NEXT YEAR [the preceding pages cover December to November] The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 
alxd ✏️ solarpunk prompts
@marick I could almost agree with KSR's intention here if not for how much he misrepresents the Global South and the grassroots. Okay, the "bottom-up" might not work in itself, but why completely erase it and show Frank as the only one with agency in the refugee camps? Why is the only non-white, non-Northerner character with a name and a speaking role a terrorist / black ops specialist? If KSR just wanted to have "another way", he could have not ridiculed people doing work right now.
Brian Marick
@alxd You’re probably right. I don’t have any personal knowledge of how refugees behave. (My paternal aunts and my grandmother were refugees from Poland after WWII – they walked about 1000km from north of Warsaw to near Stuttgart. However, I was too young to ask them about the experience. My father was in an Allied prisoner of war camp, which I don’t think is very comparable. His stories depicted everyone as being passive – head down, trying to get along.)
Brian Marick
@alxd Will just add that my memory of the Frank character is that he was portrayed as more of a doofus than anything else, throughout his character arc. I never felt he was portrayed positively. In interactions with refugees, I imagine them rolling their eyes and trying to edge him out of the way. Less a “white savior” than “oh god, another loser who thinks he’s a white savior”. But I might have been reading something into it that wasn’t there.
Brian Marick replied to Brian
@alxd I can say that I found the “only non-white, non-Northerner character” an admirable one. Way more so than Frank. Somewhat more so than Mary (?). But that could be more me than what was written on the page. I am by nature inclined to “tear it all down”. It would be interesting to see what my wife thought of the different characters, as she is much more of a Mary type: incredibly patient in chivvying people to do what needs to be done. |
Gregory's Server
KSR’s project was to figure out what might work. Part of that was India going unilateral, which I take to be his prediction about the most *likely* action the developing world will take. I think he thinks that India – both government and terrorist organization – is *right*. They are responding in an appropriate way given how the world is. (2/7)