Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

But to care about SF, it has to be about how it relates to human beings. In some sense we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who are experiencing the wonder. Otherwise it's dry and boring.

When I think about SF movies without good character, I think of Transformers. Style over substance.

Contact on the other hand had a great central character that let you feel the wonder of what she was experiencing through her eyes. That's vital.

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^dag:
Hmmm. Examples? I guess Dave Bowman was pretty flat, but HAL as a character definitely wasn't. Deckard in Bladerunner was not flat, very tortured nuanced performance by Harrison Ford. I think I'd have to disagree with you gorillaman. The best SF, like all stories, is character driven.
Well there's Rama, where Clarke correctly focuses on the ship. I feel like people who complain about the humans' characterisation just aren't reading the book right. I read Schild's Ladder recently - the characters have intellectual disagreements but not much else, to the point of lacking differentiated sexes, and it still paints a compelling portrait of future civilisation. I hesitate to mention Ayn Rand's Anthem, but she understood if you detail your protagonist too explicitly then you lose your universality of meaning.
It's not often an author can write SF in its purest form and still get published, so it's easier to find examples where too much emphasis on the human elements detracts from the work. Like Asimov's Foundation, one of my favorites. The characters in that book are downright intrusive on what's otherwise an exploration of events on a galactic scale. After the reader gets his introduction to the wonderful concept of psychohistory, the characters start to drive the plot and everything falls apart. The rest of the book and the subsequent books in the series become just Some Stuff That Happens. Well stuff happens every day, I don't need to read about stuff. Just like Rama's sequels, no good can come from watering down high literature with narratological cliches.
Good SF communicates to the reader a single idea as clearly and elegantly as possible then ends. Characterisation, even plot, are distractions.
It's an educational experience. How would you feel if your maths textbook gave the number two a quirky personality, and the equals sign a terrible secret to hide? That's fine if you just want to be entertained, but not if you want to learn something. I use SF as a kind of zen meditation, projecting my consciousness into a construction of a future I won't visit in person, in order to become enlightened.

>> ^dag:
Hmmm. Examples? I guess Dave Bowman was pretty flat, but HAL as a character definitely wasn't. Deckard in Bladerunner was not flat, very tortured nuanced performance by Harrison Ford. I think I'd have to disagree with you gorillaman. The best SF, like all stories, is character driven.

Well there's Rama, where Clarke correctly focuses on the ship. I feel like people who complain about the humans' characterisation just aren't reading the book right. I read Schild's Ladder recently - the characters have intellectual disagreements but not much else, to the point of lacking differentiated sexes, and it still paints a compelling portrait of future civilisation. I hesitate to mention Ayn Rand's Anthem, but she understood if you detail your protagonist too explicitly then you lose your universality of meaning.

It's not often an author can write SF in its purest form and still get published, so it's easier to find examples where too much emphasis on the human elements detracts from the work. Like Asimov's Foundation, one of my favorites. The characters in that book are downright intrusive on what's otherwise an exploration of events on a galactic scale. After the reader gets his introduction to the wonderful concept of psychohistory, the characters start to drive the plot and everything falls apart. The rest of the book and the subsequent books in the series become just Some Stuff That Happens. Well stuff happens every day, I don't need to read about stuff. Just like Rama's sequels, no good can come from watering down high literature with narratological cliches.

Good SF communicates to the reader a single idea as clearly and elegantly as possible then ends. Characterisation, even plot, are distractions.

It's an educational experience. How would you feel if your maths textbook gave the number two a quirky personality, and the equals sign a terrible secret to hide? That's fine if you just want to be entertained, but not if you want to learn something. I use SF as a kind of zen meditation, projecting my consciousness into a construction of a future I won't visit in person, in order to become enlightened.

[Interviewer]: So, what do you think? Good versus evil. We’re playing out the debt struggle and the debt ceiling issue. And if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’ll be in the apocalypse. What do you make of it all?

HUDSON: I think it’s evil working with evil.... If you have to choose between paying Social Security and Wall Street, pay our clients, Wall Street.

***

What’s inefficient? Paying for people on Medicaid. Got to cut it. What’s inefficient? Medicare. Got to cut it. What’s inefficient? Paying Social Security. What is efficient? Giving $13 trillion to Wall Street for a bailout. Now, how on earth can the administration say, in the last three years we have given $13 trillion to Wall Street, but then, in between 2040 and 2075, we may lose $1 trillion, no money for the people?
***

It’s not about the debt ceiling. It’s about making an agreement now under an emergency conditions. You remember what Obama’s staff aide Rahm Emanuel said. He said a crisis is too important to waste. They’re using this crisis as a chance to ram through a financial policy, an anti-Medicare, anti-Medicaid, anti—selling out Social Security that they could never do under the normal course of things.

***

They’re not going to cut back the war in Libya.

***

They’re going to have to decide what to cut back. So they’re going to cut back the bone and they’re going to keep the fat, basically. They’re going to say–they’re going to try to panic the population into acquiescing in a Democratic Party sellout by cutting back payments to the people–Social Security, Medicare–while making sure that they pay the Pentagon, they pay the foreign aid, they pay Wall Street.

[Interviewer]: Yeah. But what–I hear you. But what I’m–I’m saying, what could be an alternative policy? For example, don’t raise the debt ceiling. Number two, raise taxes on the wealthy. Number three, cut back military spending. I mean, there are ways to do this without having to borrow more money, aren’t there?

HUDSON: Of course.
***

Of course they could cut back the fat. Of course what they should do is change the tax system. Of course they should get rid of the Bush tax cuts. And the one good thing in President Obama’s speech two days ago was he used the term spending on tax cuts. So that’s not the same thing as raising taxes. He said just cut spending by cutting spending on tax cuts for the financial sector, for the speculators who count all of their income that they get, billions of income, as capital gains, taxed at 15 percent instead of normal income at 35 percent. Let’s get rid of the tax loopholes that favor Wall Street.

***

Mr. Obama has always known who has been contributing primarily to his political campaigns. We know where his loyalties lie now. And, basically, he promised change because that’s what people would vote for, and he delivered the change constituency to the campaign contributors...

this is such a great short piece.
i posted a remix of this on my blog years ago and sifted it a few months back:
http://videosift.com/video/unclassified-media-project-number-two-democracy-to-despotism

promoting this is soon as i get a PP to do so.
great post vaporlock!

This is an amazingly trippy number. Two thumbs up!

Agreed. This is the bane of football, it is the number one thing you hear non-fans criticize of the sport...well probably number two, number one is typically "too boring!".>> ^KarlHungus:

Pretty ridiculous turn of events. On the one hand, the golden rule of always playing to the whistle is self-evident here, however, the ref really missed an opportunity to punish cheating. When one dives so blatantly in the penalty area they should be shown a caution for trying to cheat the game. It's so frustrating when a player is so excellent on their feet, that they constantly feel the need to fall on their face. Have some fucking self-respect, there are children watching.

Agreed. This is the bane of football, it is the number one thing you hear non-fans criticize of the sport...well probably number two, number one is typically "too boring!".>> ^KarlHungus:

Pretty ridiculous turn of events. On the one hand, the golden rule of always playing to the whistle is self-evident here, however, the ref really missed an opportunity to punish cheating. When one dives so blatantly in the penalty area they should be shown a caution for trying to cheat the game. It's so frustrating when a player is so excellent on their feet, that they constantly feel the need to fall on their face. Have some fucking self-respect, there are children watching.

Agreed. This is the bane of football, it is the number one thing you hear non-fans criticize of the sport...well probably number two, number one is typically "too boring!".>> ^KarlHungus:

Pretty ridiculous turn of events. On the one hand, the golden rule of always playing to the whistle is self-evident here, however, the ref really missed an opportunity to punish cheating. When one dives so blatantly in the penalty area they should be shown a caution for trying to cheat the game. It's so frustrating when a player is so excellent on their feet, that they constantly feel the need to fall on their face. Have some fucking self-respect, there are children watching.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I find it interesting that blankfist is avoiding the traditional libertarian mantra of personal responsibility 'you didn't pay for fire protection, so stop crying'. ridesallyride, werweb and imstellar have no problems toeing the party line, so what's with your resistance to this fundamental libertarian trope? Do you have some reservations in this context? Are you developing social consciousness? Or are you just stuck in blame the government for everything mode?


Point number one: I think these people should've put out the fire. Look, even if this was a privatized fire department, and it was one I owned, I personally would've told them to put it out and tried to seek payment from the man after the fact.

Point number two: I do believe in personal responsibility, and to some degree I think this man has brought this onto himself, however...

point number three: we live in a society where we pay compulsory taxes and told it's a safety net. We believe the government will tuck us in at night, and this is another failure of that system that is deeply ingrained within us. This man probably assumed the government, aka the fire department, would've taken care of this, and I don't fault him for feeling this way, because (as he's mentioned) he has paid taxes which one should assume covers you. If you got rid of the compulsory tax system and instilled a voluntary tax (like user fees) then this would be a different story.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?
Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.
To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income
Taxes = Income.
Taxes are not "income", as governments which didn't earn the $$$ use force to collect. Government is not a performance-based enterprise, it's a necessary evil.
Reducing government from a tick bigger than the dog it feasts upon to a reasonable size is part of the equation. The other part is LOWERING taxes for all, which paradoxically creates more revenue.
The obamateur's corrupt excuse of an administration--even with majority voting power--has failed.
Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.
Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.
Income is an indicator of how much others will pay for an individual's performance. While I think it's total nonsense that people worship some asshole that can slam dunk a ball through a metal ring, others highly value this skill, so much so they make these ring-dunkers multi-millionaires. And the team owners that pay these 'outrageous' salaries reap financial rewards that make those salaries a bargain.
The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.
Sounds like socialist claptrap. This "rigged game theory" is what justifies the redistribution of wealth (at gunpoint) that the obamas of the world believe in. If there is any 'stealing' going on, it's being done by the looters who hand out wealth to people who had absolutely no role in creating it.
The left in America apparently learned nothing from North Korean, Cuban and Soviet experiments about the failure that is communism, and nothing about rampant socialism from the collapse of Greece.
November 2nd. Change is coming.



And the right that borrows money to aviod tax-cuts, or avoids cutting defense when it is needed? And before it is said, ALL of the right is debt-lovers but deniers... 1/1000 at least. "Cut this program, cut that program, but NEVER, ever My programs..."

^GenjiKilpatrick:

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?
Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.
To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income
Taxes = Income.
Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.
Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.
The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.
That or they speculated. Which is more luck than work.



The only thing you seem to understand is that for as far as you binge, that's how equally austere you have to become to reverse it. We can't just break even in terms of producing and consuming, we have to start producing MORE than we consume. Which is virtually impossible for any generation to vote at this point, so you are going to see a destruction of the currency almost certainly (informal default).

Government is a burden we have to bear. You may want to have a world empire, but that Soldier stationed in Japan is consuming a lot of stuff without producing. Citizens must sacrifice so that he may exist. The same goes for most of government and a huge percentage of the population works for the government now, and they retain their voting rights despite that conflict of interest.

The main thing that you're missing is that tax revenue from production goes up when production goes up, and taxes affect the incentive to produce. How does a state collect a 100% tax on someone's income when that income flees the state or just throws in the towel as a result of that tax increase? You could have had more tax revenue at a lower percentage, no? Clearly, there is a point at which the rate negatively affects the revenue since "rich" people can just sit on their money for lack of incentive in trying to produce more, a portion of which would have been paid to people helping produce it.

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?

Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.

To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income

Taxes = Income.

Taxes are not "income", as governments which didn't earn the $$$ use force to collect. Government is not a performance-based enterprise, it's a necessary evil.

Reducing government from a tick bigger than the dog it feasts upon to a reasonable size is part of the equation. The other part is LOWERING taxes for all, which paradoxically creates more revenue.

The obamateur's corrupt excuse of an administration--even with majority voting power--has failed.


Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.

Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.

Income is an indicator of how much others will pay for an individual's performance. While I think it's total nonsense that people worship some asshole that can slam dunk a ball through a metal ring, others highly value this skill, so much so they make these ring-dunkers multi-millionaires. And the team owners that pay these 'outrageous' salaries reap financial rewards that make those salaries a bargain.

The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.

Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.

Sounds like socialist claptrap. This "rigged game theory" is what justifies the redistribution of wealth (at gunpoint) that the obamas of the world believe in. If there is any 'stealing' going on, it's being done by the looters who hand out wealth to people who had absolutely no role in creating it.

The left in America apparently learned nothing from North Korean, Cuban and Soviet experiments about the failure that is communism, and nothing about rampant socialism from the collapse of Greece.

November 2nd. Change is coming.

I agree 100%. I would add to it that it doesn't trickle down either. They go out and buy a private jet and a second local mansion, meanwhile to support that lifestyle they fire over 300 employees and deny the rest raises. They talk about how taxing is the redistribution of wealth, while ignoring the fact that to keep their high salaries and excessive lifestyles they have to take that money from the workers down the line which is true redistribution of wealth.
It's not like people making that kind of money would even feel the tax anyhow.
Sadly I fear that since the Democrats seem to lack any sort of courage or conviction that the Republicans will just let the whole thing expire, or eventually to protect the poor and middle class the the Democrats will grovel and give in and let the rich keep their extra 3%...

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/quantumushroom" title="member since June 22nd, 2006" class="profilelink">quantumushroom
Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?
Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.
To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income
Taxes = Income.
Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.
Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.
The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.
That or they speculated. Which is more luck than work.

@quantumushroom

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?

Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.

To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income

Taxes = Income.

Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.

Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.

The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.

Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.

That or they speculated. Which is more luck than work.

@NetRunner, because one is the property of the sovereign individual, the other is a collection of properties where claim is laid by the collective. That's point number one.

Point number two is the sovereign individual who owns the store, whether bigoted or not, should have a natural right to his own labor, and therefore shouldn't be forced at the threat of violence to do what he does not wish to do whether or not the majority condones it.

If you do not understand the difference between telling someone to get off your property vs. telling someone to get out of the country, then I'll just chock this up to another failing of our public school system.