It’s so funny to me that Mary Shelley, her husband, John Polidori, and Lord Byron had a competition to see who could write the best horror story and she wrote fucking Frankenstein. Imagine losing a competition that badly. Imagine just doing a silly little competition with your friend and she basically invents a new genre and creates one of the most famous characters in fiction. Imagine being proud of your little story and then she shares one that people will still read every day in 200 years. Imagine doing a writing competition with your wife and she becomes so recognizable that you’ll always be known as Mary Shelley’s husband
i am not articulate enough to make this sound coherent rn. but the cycle of familial violence portrayed in gdt’s frankenstein, set against the backdrop of the cycle of violence in society with the constant references to the wars. the creature finding beauty and connection in nature, feeding the deer until it is shot dead. his speech about the wolves and the sheep, how they don’t hate each other, it’s just in their nature to kill and be killed.
it seems like these cycles will never end but they can. you can turn your ship around. you can forgive your father. you can walk into the snow and feel the sun upon your face. you can, you can, you can.
I’m so glad they got Ted Chiang – a wonderful writer of science fiction and thinker about technology, in my opinion – to write this essay. My favorite line was this:
Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium.
Some people might think I’m an optimist but I’m not. I’m a realist that’s going to try to increase the good things in this world if it kills me.
I want to severely push back on the idea that cynicism is any more realistic than optimism. There are good things in the world and there are bad things in the world. Totally ignoring one or the other doesn’t make you more correct.
You also have the power in your individual life to crowbar the long arc of the universe towards justice. Don’t just expect that things will be bad or good. Start yanking. Beat the darkness back with a stick, dammit.
ALT
