[The Prometheus Shot – E002 :: The Three-Body Problem : Knowledge & Creativity in Great Sci-Fi ]
This post is part of the Prometheus Shot series.
Category: Stories
Should you call someone an “Idiot” on social media? Should you explain things to trolls? Why aren’t people nice to strangers (especially when we can’t see their face)?
Extreme Imagination and Creativity (as in Sci-Fi and Fantasy) can be practical. They are useful as inspiration, for education, and even as inputs into scientific and engineering processes.
Here are a few thoughts on that.
I wrote a blog post about a few interesting books, including one titled “How the World Thinks”. A reader objected, saying that thinking is done by people… So, does ‘the World’ think?
Or: ‘ A (seemingly) non-terminable task*
“The materials we have aren’t exactly made for the task either. All the rocks are so irregular, and this seems to be the cause of many mistakes and delays. The workers try to fit them as much as they can, but it doesn’t always work.”
Zif’s Destiny. (Fuzzy on the Dark Side)
This post is an excerpt from ‘Zif’s Destiny’ – an allegorical story that runs throughout ‘Fuzzy on the Dark Side‘, contemplating the dark effects of approximate thinking on a group of heroes, similar to famous historical and mythological figures…
More often than not, evil is not one great shocking act. Mundane evil is the most prevalent form.. and what we come to see as great evil sometimes [usually in retrospect], starts with small tasks, and accumulates simple additions as it goes.
Ironically, I think this summarizes “Oppenheimer” – the events, and the 2023 film.
“The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by men with guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks.”
C.S. Lewis
This post is about the power of the ‘token representative’. The image of the refugee of today, is replacing that of the mobster of yesterday. It is always easier (and more emotionally satisfying) to use ‘approximate thinking’ and remember a simplified story. Interestingly, this is flowing from cultural products like Film to other areas, including business and entrepreneurship…
So, how can Thor, Odin, and the rest have been results of pillaging, rape, and raids? This post has some comments on Vikings (the series), culture, creativity, audiences, and cultural resources…
Well… the above sentence is highly reductionist, but there is some truth to it. While watching this captivating (mostly) series (Vikings), I frequently thought about culture and its components. I also thought about mobilizing the past (with some creativity and slight of hand) to support statements in contemporary public life.
Here are some of these thoughts, along with a few quotes from the show I really liked (hated).
Ursula LeGuin’s stories show how creativity can be used to explore culture and societies by constructing new universes, and offer great thought experiments. “The Left Hand of Darkness” is an adventure that does so on a very intriguing world with peculiar dwellers!
Below are some thoughts, comments, and quotes from the book.
The documentary : “WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn” is entertaining (if you don’t get angry easily), and contains an amazing exploration of the behavior of markets, consumers, and leaders. There are many hilarious moments too!
This documentary illustrates the dangers of excess, “hopium”, and building great castles on foundations of ‘fluff’. The top WeWork lessons explored in this article include excess, fuzziness, consumer (and investor) behavior, and spectacles.