Linkage: 21 January, 2020 – Think Happy Thoughts. Sci-fi and Girls. #CLSology

The only thing better than science fiction and girls would be . . . science fiction girls.

I was gearing up an episode of linkage for today that was gonna be brimming with rage and fury. Then I got over it. I got all warm and fuzzy inside. Unicorns, kittens, ice cream.

Alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

But I am in a much better mood. Thus instead of me whining about cucks you’re getting a dose of science fiction and girls.

First up, a look at your cell phone, statism and technology obsessed future.

Your mandatory upgrade is free, thanks to the biotechnology affordable use act. And taxation. Which is still theft no matter how cool your cell phone is nor how many roads are built.

Speaking of things that are built.

Lithuanian chycks.

You’re welcome.

Problem with chycks is they are hot but deceptive. Ya know what else is deceptive? Machines.

Don’t trust machines. Don’t trust chycks either. But when the chycks are German engineered it’s hard. I mean it’s hard not to trust them.

It’s hard not to think about falling into some of them holes.

Speaking of holes, careful what you fall in to. When it comes to holes and hoes.

I would ever so carefully fall into some Polish hoe’s holes. All the holes I could fall into let me tell you what.

Speaking of things I’m telling you, since my rant about the suckage of Escape Pod I’ve listened to two stories over there which are actually good.

The aliens come in peace, as they always do, bearing gifts and a banner printed with hopeful messages. Universal understanding, sharing and collaboration, the usual thing: three-hundred-year-old language cribbed from the Bebo time capsule. We install them in the quarantine tank and let them alone. We’re still processing the previous group.

The predecessors were large, their plump thigh muscles well marbled with fat. We’re dressing them in herbs and slow-roasting them, and the flavor is good, rich and unctuous, the fibers softened by their long voyage in low-G. The rest we’re making into sausage, confit, and stock. We’ve been lucky this year, with three groups since spring. Sometimes we go a long time without meat; at least real meat, better than the crawlers and birds, tiny dust-flavored things full of bones.

http://escapepod.org/2016/04/17/ep527-plural/

They always come in peace. Then things go to pieces. Kind of like dating women. It always goes to pieces.

I haven’t given up volleyball chycks but pole vaulting is rapidly becoming a new interest of mine.

Much as I have to warn you about girls (they bite) I have to warn you about the next story. There is some subtle vegan propaganda in this one yet it’s an interesting story. If you are going to write stories in which you want to insert your morals the way I want to insert my cock into Krystsina Kantsavienka this is how you do it. Subtle. Wrapped in a solid story.

Sra leaned against the wall in a moment of resignation. “It’s a shame I can’t simply torture you.”

Another moment passed as they both watched each other.

“Sra,” said Alexandra, “can we just talk the way we used to, for a minute? Is that allowed, now that I’m an animal?”

“Say whatever you want. Animals can reason as well as Nampranth, I’ve never denied that.”

“A while back you told me that the thealco are your natural prey, from your home planet. What happens if a Nampranth doesn’t get enough thealco meat?”

“There are synthetic supplements for vegetarians.”

“Out in nature, I mean.”

“We die. Thealco provide a nutrient that we can’t absorb from other sources.”

“So you evolved having to eat another sapient being. Then thousands of years later, or however long it was, your neuroscientists confirmed that your prey isn’t actually self-aware. Isn’t that a pretty amazing coincidence?”

“The coincidence,” said Sra, “is that the Nampranth evolved to be conscious in the first place. Self-awareness is not an adaptive trait. There is no evolutionary pressure that favors it. The organ of consciousness, our brain’s upper interface, developed purely as a side effect of other selected traits.”

“What if I told you that my people have a sophisticated science of consciousness? That according to our scientists, consciousness is a function of the whole brain, not just one organ? And that it always evolves along with intelligence?”

“You may be using the word ‘consciousness’ in a different way. Many animal species can perceive their own thoughts, in some sense. But for the Nampranth, there is a feeling of what it is like to see colors or feel pain. These feelings are only possible when presented to the brain’s experiential center. Something your brain does not have.”

“I’m not saying you have no reasons for what you think,” she said. “But don’t you see how your science might have developed to justify what you already thought? I mean, what did the Nampranth think of the thealco before the brain was even understood? Was there a lively debate about whether thealco were people? I doubt it.”

“A minority of animal activists have made these points before. It’s simply a way of dismissing the fact that our scientific knowledge has contradicted their moral opinions.”

“It all hangs together, doesn’t it?” she said. “Fine.”

http://escapepod.org/2016/03/29/ep526-the-hunter-captain/