Sci-Fi Fuel #2
Is Earth a Combination of Heaven and Hell? Should We Be Worried About A.I. Tom Hanks? + Other Weird and Fascinating News!
— This is a longer post than usual, so if you’re reading this via email, you might want to hop on over the the web version here to read the full thing! —
In This Newsletter:
Quantum Quote: A cool quote of the week + quick analysis!
Attack of the Jokes: Weird science/tech news + jokes!
Newstopia: Weird science/tech news minus jokes!
Incoming Transmissions: TV/film/video/podcast recommendation
Welcome to Sci-Fi Fuel #2! —
— an Alternate Timeline series highlighting news from the realms of science, tech, history, and pop culture that will help fuel your imagination.
I’ve updated the names of a few segments in what I hope will be their final form. For instance, “Joke Invasion” from Issue #1 is now “Attack of the Jokes,” and “Wormhole Watch” is now “Incoming Transmissions.” Though, I truly doubt anyone really cares.
So, let’s go ahead and rummage through some headlines and quotes that caught my eye this week!
QUANTUM QUOTE:
The Associated Press launched a compelling series of articles last week about a growing population known as “the nones.” (Link)
The descriptor is one I’ve embarrassingly never heard of (or at least never fully processed) until now, but has become inescapable from my brain since… Bouncing around with other descriptors like the Bene Gesserit from Dune or the Jedi in Star Wars. Perhaps because, out of the context of our reality, “the nones” sounds like an intriguing detail from the back of a sci-fi novel. There’s also the beautiful irony of “nones” rhyming with “nuns,” despite generally meaning the opposite.
If you’re as clueless as I was about “the nones,” its luckily all explained in this opening crawl of sorts from the AP:
*cue the Star Wars theme*
The package brings voice to those who, in many cases, question or challenge religious doctrine at great personal risk. And my favorite quote from the series come at the end of the piece on South America, in which Uruguay’s former President Jose Mujica says:
"I see all religions as very arrogant because the universe’s magnitude is so brutal, and yet they try to place humans as the epicenter. Since we don’t want to die, we need to build something that creates the illusion that not everything ends here … I believe we come from nothing. Heaven, and also hell, is right here."
Mujica’s heavy-handed, hard stance is a worthy challenge for people throughout the spectrum of beliefs. As someone who enjoys the act of questioning more than the act of having answers, I will be interrogating this quote likely forever. But I think its good sci-fi fuel for the week because of its focus on the larger universe, and how we tend to block it out of our lives for convenience. To Mujica, that convenience is religion.
Quick Sci-Fi Analysis:
Mujica’s quote has an interesting three act structure:
ACT I:
A condemnation of all religions because, in the face of a broader universe, “…they try to place humans as the epicenter.”
ACT II:
An analysis of why, in his view, religion is merely a comforting illusion to ease our fear of death.
ACT III:
Flipping the religious terminology of “heaven” and “hell” on its head, by saying that we’re living in both.
Now that his quote has been abstracted a bit—its easy to see how each point has been explored in various sci-fi properties.
Here’s what comes to mind for me, and I’d love to know what comes to mind for you in the comments.
ACT I is reminiscent of Star Trek—which takes place in a post-religion future and centers around a group of inter-species explorers who document and learn from the broader universe instead of siloing themselves away from it.
ACT II, with its focus on religion as an illusion, ties into the themes of The Matrix—in which people are offered a choice between remaining in a digital illusion or embracing the truth of the real world.
In The Matrix, the “pill of knowledge,” is offered with a hint of enthusiasm. Whereas in the book of Genesis (which is arguably the most sci-fi book of The Bible), God offers the same choice, only with dire consequences for choosing knowledge.
And ACT III feels like a classic sci-fi plot twist. In Mujica’s view—we’ve been living in heaven and hell all along. Which could be as shocking to those who are devoted to certain belief systems as George Taylor’s awful realization at the end of Planet of the Apes .
Religion is likely the touchiest subject on Earth. The beauty of sci-fi is that by taking us a few degrees away from the particulars, it can help us look at such topics with a little more ease.
Finally, it’s important to note that Mujica kind of looks like if Albert Einstein were a hobbit:
ATTACK OF THE JOKES:
A few weird science/tech news items made it into my daily joke series over at Letters from African America this week:
An AI version of Tom Hanks was used in a dental plan ad without his consent. Hanks swiftly tasked his digital avatar from Polar Express to “take care of it.”
NASA is plotting how to build houses on the moon by 2040. Prompting the Star Trek franchise to update its slogan to:
Australians are adding used coffee grounds into cement. The process is said to make concrete stronger and aid the environment. One side effect though: sidewalks get a little chatty after all that caffeine. “Oh, are these new soles on the shoes you’re stepping on me with? Where'd you get ‘em?!”
Chipotle's new robots can crank out nearly 200 burrito bowls in an hour. “Hey, so can I!” — said the winner of the 2023 Chipotle Burrito Bowl Eating Contest.
Almost two thousand people have spotted unidentifiable flying objects in Maryland skies. However, those same two thousand people reacted strangely to the follow-up question, “Hey, what’s in that crab cake?”
Amazon is launching an internet satellite into space today. Which can only mean God will be checking on return policies tomorrow. [Written on 10-6-2023]
Okay—they weren’t all bangers. But mash that comment button if you’d like to tell me which was your favorite.
NEWSTOPIA:
Headlines and brief quotes that might get your brain moving.
September 28, 2023 — via Wired
Scientists Have an Audacious Plan to Map the Ancient World Before It Disappears (Link)
September 29, 2023 — via Wired
The Rebel Drone Maker of Myanmar (Link)
September 29, 2023 — via Wired
A Revelation About Trees Is Messing With Climate Calculations (Link)
September 30, 2023 — via Wired
Lego Is a Company Haunted by Its Own Plastic (Link)
October 1, 2023 — via Wired
How Insect Brains Melt and Rewire During Metamorphosis (Link)
October 1, 2023 — via The New York Times
Through partnerships and 3-D printing, NASA is plotting how to build houses on the moon by 2040. (Link)
October 3, 2023 — via Wired
Your Internet Browser Does Not Belong to You (Link)
Browsing came about as a result of changing material conditions, but it was also a natural extension of a philosophy of curious leisure and an aesthetic of exploratory idyll popularized in the 1800s. The flâneur—an urban wanderer and watcher, at once detached from and attuned to the newly industrialized environment—sprang from the literary imagination of the era. Baudelaire describes the flâneur as a “passionate spectator” and speaks of the experience of wanting to “be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world.”
October 3, 2023 — via Popular Mechanincs
Why Russia, China, and the U.S. Are Suddenly Expanding Their Nuclear Weapons Test Sites (Link)
October 4, 2023 — via Motherboard
Meta’s Deranged AI-Generated Stickers Include Waluigi with a Gun, Child Soldiers, Naked People (Link)
October 4, 2023 — via Deadline
Very Strange But Oddly True: Documentary ‘Welcome Space Brothers’ Explores Unarius Group That Claimed To Channel Extraterrestrials (Link)
October 4, 2023 — via Wired
How Neuralink Keeps Dead Monkey Photos Secret (Link)
October 4, 2023 — via AP
3 scientists win Nobel in chemistry for quantum dots research used in electronics, medical imaging (Link)
October 5, 2023 — via Newsweek
Humans Lived in America Earlier Than Thought, Ancient Footprint Study Finds (Link)
October 5, 2023 — via Wired
Generative AI Has Ushered In the Next Phase of Digital Spirituality (Link)
October 5, 2023 — via Newsweek
Live Music Synchronizes Audience's Heart Rate, Breathing: Study (Link)
October 5, 2023 — via Motherboard
Man Jailed In UK’s First Treason Conviction In 40 Years Was Encouraged by AI Chatbot (Link)
October 5, 2023 — via Newsweek
'Vaccine' Against Conspiracy Theories Could Be Closer Than You Think (Link)
"If you think of a social network, you have patient zero—somebody who starts spreading misinformation," van der Linden said. "The other people in that network who come into contact with that individual become 'infected' after they've been exposed to the misinformation, and then there is some chance of those individuals transmitting the virus to other people in their network. And before you know it, everyone in a particular network has been exposed or infected.
October 5, 2023 — via Newsweek
Scientists Baffled by Island's Ancient Bear Bones May Have a Breakthrough (Link)
October 5, 2023 — via Motherboard
Ring Is Cashing In on the UFO Craze to Promote Its Surveillance Dystopia (Link)
October 5, 2023 — via Newsweek
Fluorescent Mammals Are Much More Common Than Scientists Thought (Link)
October 6, 2023 — via Newsweek
NASA Detects Bizarre, Extraordinarily Bright Explosion in Unexpected Place (Link)
October 6, 2023 — via Motherboard
Generative AI Is a Disaster, and Companies Don’t Seem to Really Care (Link)
October 6, 2023 — via Newsweek
Before and After Satellite Pictures Show Mississippi River Disappearing (Link)
October 6, 2023 — via Newsweek
Scientists Unlock Secret of Earth's Core: 'We Just Found the Holy Grail' (Link)
October 8, 2023 — via Space.com
All solar eclipses will be 'rings of fire' in the distant future. Here's why (Link)
October 8, 2023 — via Wired
How These Nobel-Winning Physicists Explored Tiny Glimpses of Time (Link)
October 8, 2023 — via Space.com
A comet explosion may have started agriculture in Syria 12,800 years ago (Link)
INCOMING TRANSMISSION:
INTERVIEW: Isaac Asimov on Superstition, Religion and Rationality
I’m hearing everything from mixed to ecstatic reviews of season two of Foundation on Apple TV+, which fits perfectly with the fierce debates I’ve heard people have about Asimov’s work in general. However, non debate that he is one of the pillars of modern science fiction and its always refreshing to see how fiercely he spoke about the subject in conversation.
PODCAST: Lifewriting “Secrets to Writing Great Science Fiction!”
Sci-fi writer Steven Barnes and horror writer Tananarive Due (who happen to be married) explain what it takes to launch a career in writing science fiction.
That’s all for now. These updates will get better and more comprehensive as the weeks go by. But I also want to make them interactive. If there are any recent, weird science/tech news that you wish I listed here, drop it in the comments!
See you next week with more…