GarlicBender

joined 4 years ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 years ago (2 children)

Heroics. The fate of the society/world/universe turns on the actions of one or a few characters.

Heroics only make sense in certain settings. In many/most, it really doesn't make sense for the main characters to be the primary plot drivers when there are millions or billions of other actors in the world. I think it is overused, presents a tunnel-vision worldview, and ultimately confines the world to the characters and ends up less interesting for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago

Good points and illustration. I think that there is no true need to be able to empathize with alien intelligence in a narrative. Goodness knows I have trouble empathizing with plenty of human characters... Hierarchy of Foreignness was even a thematic element in the Ender books.

Have you read A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge? I remember it doing a pretty good job of imagining polymorphic sentience and civilization churn.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Not that you are wrong about the crazy amounts of energy required for mining, but I don't think that picture is a good example. I recall seeing it in the news, and it is from a cannabis grow operation in the Netherlands: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/melting-snow-being-used-police-find-cannabis-farms-netherlands-10036057.html

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