Hello everyone!
Sometimes, it so happens I have to cancel my writing plans. Two weeks ago a major political event unfolded in Russia, and all my attention has been focused on it. Today, it’s barely past its active phase but even that is not for sure. Still, I can reclaim my focus and get back to this blog and other activities.
First and foremost, let me tell you about…
Dune
A political and ecological science fiction novel, brilliantly written by Frank Herbert. There is not much science in it, including ecology which is one of the main themes. Neither the technological background is shown in great detail. It’s rather a collection of political close-ups on a personal level. The interplay of possibilities is shown as a vortex that pulls all subjects of the game into a tight, narrow bottleneck where their choices become harshly limited.
In the possibility space, all events either form a broad network of threads of different brightness or coalesce into a nexus. Beyond the nexus, there is only darkness, even for the most skilled precognition seers. At such a point of spacetime, so many threads are put together, and so much is bet on the actions of the players that any minor shift in the fabric of reality can turn the tide in any direction.
I like the idea. We can extrapolate it to our world, too. Sometimes, we can predict what comes next with really solid chances, and many events have a kind of “probabilistic armor” that allows them to shrug off considerable amounts of unpredictability. From time to time, though, an event occurs that is so tightly packed with threads — threads leading to different factions, personalities, and other events — that it becomes a nexus of unpredictability itself.
Of course, some people are better informed than most of us, but only so much. We are very limited in our ability to comprehend reality. Even with advanced algorithms and armies of analysts, we are humbly inferior to the complexity of the world.
The thing we can do — to the structure of our society, at least — is to make it less prone to the formation of such nexuses. That is, we can (and should) make our society more stable. What we need for that is a healthy democracy.
Politics
I believe it is very important for all of us to get involved in politics. This doesn’t necessarily mean running for President or getting elected to a senior position at a major institution. There are lesser, and, often, more meaningful steps.
First, it’s good to know your neighbors. Just make acquaintances with them if you have not done that already. Then, start a local chat and keep people aware of the events that are happening nearby and issues that may concern most of you. If there are people who have started doing that, help them to organize the process. You can put up a website or some other media to represent your civil stance, list the members of your neighborhood to acquire some local political weight.
Along with that, you can meet your local representatives: the head of the municipality, the police officer who is assigned to your neighborhood (this is a local practice in Russia, I’m not sure it’s widespread). Details may vary but you get the point.
The next possible thing is to connect with several adjacent neighborhoods. Beyond this, it’s all up to you and your imagination. You can support local deputies, you may want to become a deputy yourself, you may even run for President one day.
Opinions
People usually get quite defensive if you approach them on the subject of their political opinion, so I’ll limit myself to these two things I believe:
Don’t put labels on politicians. Everybody exists in a context, no one’s actions are independent. Every politician is a figure in every other politician’s play.
Vote with your head, not your heart. Politics is a game, not a movie. You must always remain a rational player.
Education
Of course, always educate yourself (and those around you) in these matters. Learn how the political system in your country works. Find out what parties are there, even if they are fictitious. Study the fundamentals of the law, even if it’s neglected every now and then. The more knowledgeable you are, the better our world becomes.
Stray insights
Now, to less intense matters!
Dinosaurs
I learned recently that the consensus on how most dinosaurs looked like has changed over the last 20 years. When Jurassic Park was filmed, scientists thought that dinosaurs had been more like big, slow reptiles. Now, it is more widely believed that many of them were fast, agile, multicolored, maybe even warm-blooded. Some of them might have had feathers. They could care for their young, sing like birds, climb the trees!
This is one of the most scientifically accurate dinosaurs (photo by Robert Nicholls):
I’ve also received a recommendation to read All Yesterdays, a book on how we see dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Haven’t got a hold of it yet.
Woodrow Wilson
Here, I simply want to share a brilliant quote of his:
If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.
Recommendations
Since a vacation period happened in the meantime, let me tell you about some of the great games and cartoons I encountered. But first of all, let me share with you a great article on how the Pfizer vaccine works. If you have a programming background, it will be easy-peasy for you. If not, don’t fret, it is still well-written and very interesting.
Cartoons
These are Wolfwalkers and Klaus. Both are charming and magical, so I can’t vouch for one over another, and I hope you watch them. I truly cannot understand why Klaus didn’t win the Oscar nomination…
Games
I have two of these for you as well:
Hades, with its crushing 98% of positive reviews, is a rogue-like dungeon crawler based on a spicy hot interpretation of Ancient Greek myths. I have spent more than 50 hours there, even as this genre is not really my cup of tea.
Factorio, in which you have to build up an assembly-line empire from scratch, is a perfect place to train your process-building skills. By a strange coincidence, it displays 98% of positive user reviews, too…
It was not an easy feat, to write a post after a 6-week delay, and I hope I won’t have to take such a long break again anytime soon. Thank you for reading, till the next time!