Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
I haven't been hugely impressed by Marvel's recent TV shows. I found WandaVision's first few episodes hard to get through, and the later action never really made up for it. And the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn't draw me in. So I was slow to watch Loki. But after hearing … Continue reading Loki
John Horgan recently wrote a column which has received a lot of attention. Horgan's thesis is that when it comes to three topics: the existence of God, the mind-body problem, and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, science can't provide the answers and may never be able to. Horgan advises that the only responsible position … Continue reading Clarifying agnosticism
As I've gotten older, I've become increasingly weary of the alien invasion premise. The problem is the level of coincidence. Earth was a sitting duck for 4 billion years, but the aliens wait until the very century when humans are able to mount any kind of resistance. (To the credit of HG Wells, the originator … Continue reading Project Hail Mary
ID-0 is an interesting little series I stumbled across on Netflix. Like a lot of sci-fi anime, it's in the mecha genre (involving giant robots), but with a twist. The premise is that humans can copy their mind into a robot called an "I-machine" and essentially become the robot. A backup copy of the human's … Continue reading ID-0
For years Netflix dangled Knights of Sidonia in front of me as a recommended show to check out. But as I noted several posts back, I was generally resistant to anime for a long time. I did try to take up the show once, but remember struggling with the standard anime female tropes and the … Continue reading Knights of Sidonia
Tsutomu Nihei is a manga artist who specializes in science fiction. His stories tend to be dark cyberpunk in post apocalyptic settings. The more recent ones take place in space, which is checking a lot of the marks for the type of fiction I usually enjoy. His first series was Blame!, which was adopted a … Continue reading Blame!
We all have ideas or concepts that exasperate us when they're brought up. Mine have changed over the years. When I was younger, anything that called into question certain ideas, such as the religious faith I was raised in, or the mantra of American patriotism, irritated me to no end. I tended to reject propositions … Continue reading Scrutinize what makes you angry
Ronnie de Souza has an interesting article at Aeon on why he thinks the concept of morality isn't helpful. His overall thesis is that the idea that there are things that are right or wrong without qualification, in and of itself, adds nothing useful to the conversation. We can find reasons why or why not … Continue reading Some words might simply no longer be productive for precise conversations
My anime binge has expanded somewhat into a manga binge. A while back, I posted about the movie Alita: Battle Angel. I enjoyed it a great deal and was intrigued by the world that was presented, of a bifurcated society, with an elite living in the floating city of Zalem, and a hardscrabble lower class … Continue reading Battle Angel Alita
If you've ever perused the anime section of your streaming services, you'll recognize this one. Even more than Fullmetal Alchemist, it's one of the most popular series in the world. It's billed as dark fantasy, and they're not kidding about the dark part, but I found it to more often have a science fictional attitude. … Continue reading Attack on Titan
