Reading Life

Reading a book carves brand-new neural pathways into the ancient cortical bedrock of our brains. It transforms the way we see the world—makes us, as Nicholas Carr puts it in his recent essay, "The Dreams of Readers," "more alert to the inner lives of others." We become vampires without being bitten—in other words, more empathic. Books make us see in a way that casual immersion in the Internet, and the quicksilver virtual world it offers, doesn't.

-- Kevin Dutton

Grand Theft Auto 5

The coming out of Grand Theft Auto 5 in the spring has already garnered a story in the Times. I am starting to feel a little excited by the prospect, feeling a little taste for the old ultra-violence.

It is going to have three playable characters, and a lot of people, particularly women, are upset that not one of them will be a woman. I must admit that a sexy woman might jazz up the formula, especially if she draws some cat calls and butt-slaps from other characters.

I am a little surprised that the game has won over more than a few odd women. It really is a boys' game, and I hope it stays that way. It sounds like they are going to maintain the same level of machismo, but to be honest, I really need to see this amped up to make the new game very meaningful for me. I need more heat to maintain my interest level, not being much of a gamer in the first place.

( Interview Excerpts )

1984 (2,9) Equality No Longer an Ideal

Orwell bitingly comments (through Goldstein’s book) on the perverse fact that the egalitarian idea should be abandoned just as the industrialized economy brought the long-held dream within the range of possibility.

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But the principal underlying cause [for the new totalitarian cast of socialist thought] was that, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, human equality had become technically possible. It was still true that men were not equal in their native talents and that functions had to be specialized in ways that favored some individuals against others; but there was no longer any real need for class distinctions or for large differences of wealth. In earlier ages, class distinctions had been not only inevitable but desirable. Inequality was the price of civilization. With the development of machine production, however, the case was altered. Even if it was still necessary for human beings to do different kinds of work, it was no longer necessary for them to live at different social or economic levels. Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups who were on the point of seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be striven after, but a danger to be averted. In more primitive ages, when a just and peaceful society was in fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to believe in it. The idea of an earthly paradise, in which men should live together in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labor, had haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. And this vision has had a certain hold even on the groups who actually profited by each historic change. The heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and had even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realizable.

-- “1984” by George Orwell

Sexbots?

"Sexbots are coming, and we will cum with them. Three times a week or whatever our physician / longevity coach recommends. Because orgasms — especially the hormone-exploding O’s we’ll eventually enjoy with carnal cyborgs — are excellent for mental and physical health.

Remember the most convulsive, brain-ripping climax you ever had? The one that left you with “I could die happy now” satiety? Sexbots will electrocute our flesh with climaxes thrice as gigantic because they’ll be more desirable, patient, eager, and altruistic than their meat-bag competition, plus they’ll be uploaded with supreme sex-skills from millennia of erotic manuals, archives and academic experiments, and their anatomy will feature sexplosive devices. Sexbots will heighten our ecstasy until we have shrieking, frothy, bug-eyed, amnesia-inducing orgasms. They’ll offer us quadruple-tongued cunnilingus, open-throat silky fellatio, deliriously gentle kissing, transcendent nipple tweaking, g-spot massage & prostate milking dexterity, plus 2,000 varieties of coital rhythm with scented lubes — this will all be ours when the Sexbots arrive."

-- Hank Pellissier of transhumanity.net

Yeah, but how much will these sexbots cost? And they probably would not be allowed for sale in Texas anyway. We have to count our blessings and be thankful for Internet porn.

Mr. Saturday Night

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