Tag: Big Ideas

My Backup Scifi Novel Is Beginning To Get Fleshed Out

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am going through my main novel — which I now see as a “passion project” at quite a nice little clip. I hope to wrap up the latest iteration of the third draft in a few weeks. Then I will probably go through and really look carefully at each scene to make absolutely sure that it’s good enough to keep as-is.

Meanwhile, the scifi novel, which I am developing specifically to be as marketable as possible, is coming along as well. I’m using AI to help me develop the novel because I have no friends and no one likes me. I have had decidedly mixed results using AI for development.

Sometimes AI has given me so really good suggestions. Other times, meanwhile, the results have been rather…meh. But, in general, using AI has sped development up significantly because it has given me at least some sort of path as to where I should go. Too often in the past I’ve spent a lot of time just spinning my wheels, not really knowing what I should do.

Anyway, the next step with the “passion project” novel is to save up money for an editor. It’s going to take me a few months because I’m living in poverty. But it will be worth it. I am still rattled by the fact that I managed to scare off one editor I wanted to work with simply because I’m a freaky weirdo.

But I have to accept that within a few months — hopefully no later than July 22nd, 2024, I will begin the querying process for the “passion project” in some way — even if it’s just continuing to save money up for an editor of some sort. I may break down and just start to query the novel if I fear it’s just going to take me too long to get through the editing process.

Everything Is So Fucked Up

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgerner

Trump is just a symptom of a broader problem in American politics. That is what makes Trump such a curious political figure. He is not a Great Man of history, he’s just a very lucky ding-dong who serves as an avatar for the rage of white Christians (men) who feel disenfranchised on a personal basis by the “woke cancel culture mob.”

That is why American democracy is on the verge of collapse. That is why we’re just one election away from imploding as a nation — not Trump.

All the potential solutions to this particular problem just aren’t applicable anymore. It’s clear that the final showdown between the forces of democracy and fascism is just a matter of time now. It’s not like I want this to happen, but I just can’t see MAGA fading peacefully into political oblivion if we manage to win in 2024.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope that we win in 2024 and MAGA peacefully drifts into political obscurity and that will be that. But, I fear, the best case scenario is Trump rants about the need for a National Divorce and everyone just ignores him. Then he turns around an announces for 2028.

The Far Left’s Anger Over The War In Gaza Is Justified, But Leads To Some Extremely Misguided Demands

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The rage against President Biden on the part of Far Left people over the war in Gaza is a prime example of how we live in an age devoid of nuance. These Far Left people are so angry at Biden for his Middle East policies that they openly vow never to vote for him.

This is very, very misguided for a number of reasons.

If we lived in era devoid of any nuance at all, then these Far Left people would make it clear what this threat was about — trying to get Biden to adjust his support for the Israeli government. But, no, they are so bonkers that that they just vow to either vote for Trump, a third party candidate or not vote at all — and then they get really mad when you say you’re going to vote for Biden.

The issue for me is Trump is an existential threat not just to American democracy — but the post World War Two global order. I would much rather have someone sane like Biden in power than deranged ding-dong Trump. And, what’s more, it’s not like Trump is going to turn his back on the Israeli government and support the Palestinians. Trump’s politics are far closer to Bibi Netanyahu than Biden’s.

The motives behind opposing Biden because of Gaza are so ill conceived, conflated and misguided that it’s really difficult to comprehend why anyone would think such a thing. And, yet, that’s the world we live in at the moment. And all of this is happening in the context of the United States careening towards what could be some of the most momentous months in our history starting in late 2024, early 2025.

Memories Of The Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Writing a novel set “the day after tomorrow” is a lot more difficult than you might think because of how fast the future is rushing towards us. So, I find myself drawing upon a lot of my personal fears about the future and throwing them into the universe I’m building.

There’s a pretty good chance that things will begin to move so quickly that even my wildest dreams about technology may see rather quaint before the novel is even queried. But I like the challenge. It’s fun to see if I can think of really exotic technological problems.

But, in general, the scifi novel I’m working on is getting really interesting. It’s fun to be able to use all these daydreams I’ve been having about the near-term impact of technology and then expounding upon them. It definitely will be interesting to see if the real future beats me and my fictional future.

It is interesting how much I’ve been able to lean into some personal gripes I have about some things that have happened to me in the past. I’ve managed to seamlessly shoehorn some pretty important situations from what happened to me in Seoul in to the novel.

All good stories are true stories. So, there you go.

I’ve been really impressed with how the chatbots I’ve been using to aid in development of this novel have been really good at helping me improve the treatment I’m working on. I’m doing all of this in a vacuum – yet again — so I’m forced to use AI just to have some sense of what to do with the overall story.

I’m Growing Worried

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Every once in a while in America’s history, a small group of people stir up trouble in what appears to be a pretty random basis. For instance, there was a point when people who sought Puerto Rican independence would do random acts of violence.

Their most notable attack was when they tried to assassinate President Truman coming out of Blair House.

These days, of course, it’s people upset over what’s going on in Gaze. I am growing concerned that something Really Bad is going to happen because of people who are enraged over Israel’s war in Gaza. I’m probably being paranoid — I do tend to be that way — but something done by the pro-Palestinian people in the United States is just the type of Black Swan even that seems at least possible as we lurch towards the 2024 election.

‘The Backup’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally have started to work on my backup novel. It’s a scifi novel that deals with a pandemic. It’s really good, but for one thing — the concept seems pretty obvious to me.

So obvious, that I am preparing myself to wake up on day to discover that a movie or novel has been released with the exact same concept. I have some other ideas to use as a back up, but I really like this back up idea and it will really suck to put all this work into it, only to have to pivot to something else.

But development of this backup concept is moving really, really fast. I’m about two thirds of the way through a treatment. Once that is done and stabilized, I hope to do some character studies.

THEN, I will sit down and block off some time during the day to write the first draft. I am going to be really careful to think about current market trends with this backup novel.

There won’t be nearly as much sex as there is with the main novel. The chapters will be shorter. I will have only one — male — POV so the “woke cancel culture mob” won’t get their panties in a bunch because a smelly CIS white male is writing from a female POV. Ugh.

So, I continue to press forward with the main novel project with an eye towards starting a backup project pretty soon. I continue to dread the querying process. It’s going to be tough, being rejected all the time.

But you have to believe.

Thinking The Unthinkable: A Tie

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The idea of an Electoral College tie is not a new one, but given how perilously close the United States is to a MAGA Nazi dictatorship, the idea that we would have to deal with such a thing is even more alarming.

If there is a tie, the House would decide the presidency, while the Senate would decide who would be veep. But, of course, it’s actually lot more complicated than that because the president would be decided by state delegations to the House, rather than a simple majority.

As such, each state would have one vote.

If this were to happen, it’s clear that Trump would be elected POTUS.

And, yet, the wildcard might be the Senate. It’s at least possible that in some effort to placate an angry populace, that the Senate might name Kamala Harris as Trump’s veep. This would set up the surreal situation where Trump might go full tyrant us, cause the US to come to the brink of civil war…then he might abruptly shuffle off this mortal coil and Harris would have to clean up the mess.

As an aside, I think we have to appricate that Trump’s ultimate historic purpose could be to simply break the Constitution to the point that we feel forced as a nation to go back to the drawing board with a Constitutional Convention. As I’ve suggested before, Trump could, in the end, be something of an American Caesar in the sense that he ultimately is nothing more than a transitional figure who destroys the Republic, causing something new to take its place.

There is a spectrum of possibilities. Everything from the founding of a Third Republic to a complete and total slide into a white Christian ethnostate.

But that is a great deal of speculation. I have no idea what is going to happen.

Vibes Are Destroying America

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can not stress enough how corrosive “bad vibes” are to the United States at the moment. Time and again, that is essentially why my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — are concerned about: vibes. They feel put upon and slighted, but don’t quite know why.

Mood.

Take, for instance, two important issues of the day — gay rights and abortion rights.

In both instances, I get the sense from my conservative relatives that the issue is more one of vibes than anything else. They do a lot of reserve engineering to accommodate their alarm over the “vibes” associated with these two hot button issues, but vibes are still what’s going on.

When it comes to gay rights, it definitely seems as though my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — don’t really have a problem with gay rights, they just don’t want to hear about it. They think being gay should be a secret shame that people have to struggle with, not something they’re proud of.

Meanwhile, abortion is pretty much the same thing.

On at least once instance, I’ve had a far more conservative relative — whom I love dearly — essentially say they just didn’t like having to hear about abortion. While in the abstract they are totally, 100% against abortion, in practical terms, I suspect if someone close to them needed to get an abortion for some reason, it would be dealt with in private — but it would happen.

Now, obviously, what I find surreal about vibes being a problem with abortion for conservatives is they fail to realize that abortion has always been a political firebreak for contraception. So, now that Roe has been overturned, we’re racing towards a moment in time when all forms of contraception, even for married people, will be in legal jeopardy.

But the problem with vibes is driving Traditionalists into the arms of MAGA Nazis at an alarming rate. And because of the hazy nature of “vibes” it’s really difficult to do anything about. The seeming obsession that the cultural Left has with Drag Storytime and that sort of thing that really riles Traditionalists up doesn’t exactly help the situation.

There’s just no solution, as best I can tell. And it’s only going to get worse one way or another. We continue to careen towards a minority majority nation and the basic tenants of feminism are here to stay. This happens as growing number of young men feel as though their traditional role as breadwinner is out of their reach.

And just wait until the Incel movement fuses with sexbots. That could be a severe social problem in the next decade or so — growing numbers of young men will simply buy a sexbot that they program to be whatever they want them to be, causing them to give up on women — and having babies — altogether.

We’re Careening Towards A Future Where People Fall In Love With Their Digital Personal Assistant

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A reoccurring theme within the social media discourse about the dramatic AI improvements over the last year or so is a persistent demand that chatbots have no guardrails. A lot of people — young men, presumably — want AI to give them instructions on how to build an A-bomb, if they want to know.

All of this gets muddled because of the hyper partisan would that we live in. Conservatives believe that the “woke cancel culture mob” will somehow oppress us all by forcing us all to get “woke” answers from chatbots. This, of course, ignores how MAGA Nazis are probably going to open concentration camps if they gain power again.

Anyway, it definitely seems as though there may come a point when digital personal assistants will not sound like the HR departments of a major corporation, but rather an actual human being. And, I fear, just like in the movie Her, a lot of people — especially members of the Incel community — are probably going to fall in love.

But wait, there’s more.

Just imagine a day-after-tomorrow scenario where sexbots are affordable. Incels will buy and program their sexbots to be pliant and have sex with them all the time even if they’re losers, which could really fuck up modern gender dynamics. People who already are alienated from the rest of society — Incels — will suddenly have absolutely no reason to work on their people skills to the point where they have to accommodate women.

As such, it’s very possible there could be a significant social disruption as growing numbers of men simply refuse to interact with women at all to the point that the population begins to plummet. I know that sounds like yet more “hysterical doom shit” on my part, but it’s something we have to take into consideration going forward.

If Incels can simply buy sexbots, they will have even less reason to change their personality to deal with women. Ugh. It could all happen so quickly that we, as a society, won’t be able to understand how to deal with it. But such a wild west type of future definitely seems to be what a lot of people in the AI community online want.

They feel as though ANY guardrails are unacceptable. I figure most of this sentiment comes from young men who are oblivious to how AI might destroy society if its totally unregulated.

‘April 2025’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are a series of milestones during the year that mark the progression of the year for me. One of these markers is my high school’s homecoming. That happens this weekend and it causes me to think about a year from now and to wonder what the world will look like in April 2025.

Mood.

It could very well be that all my “hysterical doom shit” will turn out to be just that and we’ll somehow muddle through to the point that a year from now won’t be much different from today.

But there is a greater-than-zero chance that things may be so fucked up the next time my high school has its homecoming that either it doesn’t happen or the context will be so different that I won’t really feel like going. I don’t think we appreciate how crazy things could get starting in late 2024, early 2025.

And the craziness could happen if Trump wins or loses. If he loses, he could demand a National Divorce to stay out of prison and if he wins, by April 2025, the country may be in the middle of a historic uprising against his tyranny.

Or not. I just don’t know.

I am, however, very unnerved by what we have to look forward to in the next year.