FollowThis week, I thought I’d try something a little different and give you a few poems. I mean, I spent a ton of money learning how to do this shit, and I’d really like to get a return on that investment. That aside, in keeping with the theme of this site, they all have a sci-fi motif and I also threw in some cool images. The first and second are mine from DeviantArt and the third is from Pixabay. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them.
On the Drift
I love my friends and I think they love me too—most of the time.
Sometimes though, I feel like I don't quite belong,
like I'm from a parallel universe that's just a little bit...off. Not Kirk from"Mirror, Mirror", though.
Think "Parabox" Leela. You know?
And, yeah, I know that, sometimes, it's the DVD commentary track that Richard (the asshole that lives in my head) runs about how
unlovable/unsuited/unfit I am. But not always.
Those times, it's a message hidden in an Oaty bar commercial (miranda). Which is weird
because they'd never be caught dead in a place like
The Maidenhead. I may not go off and kick Jayne in the nuts, but in that moment,
I am jarringly reminded that we're from different worlds. Ones that
almost never collide.
It's not just them, though. It happens with my
blue-collar brothers and sisters, too.
I went to college and got all that book learnin', while they stayed on
the sandy, twin-sunned world of our youth and
they're not letting me forget that I may be
among them but I am not
of them.
I feel like Major Tom, floating
around in a tin can, cut loose from
the moorings of my youth, never
quite able to put in to
Port Intelligentsia. And I gotta
tell you, it's lonely out here
on the drift.
What Will the Future Look Like?
Will it be like the movies? All shiny
Chrome and utopian ideals? Or
Will it be bleak and broken, filled with
Anarchy, famine, murder, and death?
Will it send us on a five-year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before?
Or will our creations try to wipe us from the face of the earth because we're the greatest
hazard to their existence?
Will it be like Omelas, where our utopia is built on the back of one tortured child? One we all
turn a blind eye to?
Will it be a dystopian hellscape dominated by fuel-crazed marauders constantly confronted by one good but-not-too-good, man trying to shed his pain yet unable to let justice slide? Me? I don't see the future turning out anywhere near those Hollywood wet dreams. If there is an apocalypse, it will probably be serene and we'll lay ourselves down to sleep because some government thought they could make us better. But mostly, I think will be morbidly mundane, filled with just enough moments of both horror and wonder to keep us hanging on a little longer, until the sun finally fades into a black dwarf.
AI: Is There Hope On the Horizon?
AI will change our lives, but how? Will it be The Jetsons,
with robot maids and flying cars? Or will it be Black Mirror-esque
with a new dystopian horror every week? What's coming at us? Will we get
Pym's Ultron or
Soong's Data? Oh shit what if it's,
Dyson's Skynet? I mean, if machines can learn, where does that leave us? Won't they be
better stronger faster?
It's hard to say, could go either way since the tech bros are so busy wondering if
they can,
they don't stop to think about whether
they should.
It all makes me wonder what's going to happen when
AI becomes enshiffified?
Because it will.
You know it will.
Seriously, what are the odds that the move-fast-break-things boys will resist all those
sweet, sweet Wall Street simoleons?
Not good, I'm guessing.
About about the same as getting the promised return from that
Nigerian Prince that hit us up.
But, Roger did snag Jessica, so maybe there's a little hope.
