What is the important similarity between Captain Jean Picard, Christopher Columbus, and the BOOOOOORRRGGG??

      Hint: They're all pasty white guys!! (I'm only kind of kidding). After putting that thought aside, we can see that the obvious similarity is that the are all men of conquest, with that being the case, the real question is why do we generally have such extremely different impressions of each of them? What makes a "good" or "bad" conquistador?
     I think many people would be inclined to say how they treat the land and people on which they arrived, is the defining factor in deciding if they are moral or amoral. I rather, would suggest that it is actually the adventurers motive or mondus operandi, or at least the one that they proclaim, that shifts our perception of that person and possibly even turn a blind eye to their less humane actions. People live vicariously through stories of adventure and like to identify with the main character, so we like a story with a main character with a motive we can aspire to; "To go where no man has gone before", "To discover the New World", but "Resistance is Futile"?, not so much. Because of our bias, we would rather chalk up mortality at the hands of a conqueror we "like", or maybe just their carelessness as just symptom of adventure, than instead destroy our perfectillusion of grandeur, especially if that conqueror is from our direct history.
     In the case of Christopher Columbus many American people will put aside the genocide he committed in their mind as to not destroy the romantic vision of "the Discoverer" and effectively themselves, it's borderline narcissistic. I'm in no way saying that Picard has a similar moral compass to Columbus, just a similar motto. For the same reason that we look past Colombus's atrocities, we look past Picards shortcomings, even if they are partly due to some kind of Butterfly effect. He used his confidence to explore as a way to pick up alot of responsibility, that viewers sometimes let him shed when something goes wrong. For example, because of how Picard handles Q and the Borg, thousands of people die in battle. At the very least, Picard is not mindless, we are just apt to look over the messiness and dark side that inevitably come along with having the drastic influence of leading a civilization to new explorations.
             I think what is most distressing about the Borg, besides the fact that they kill entire species, is that they don't seem to have any heroic motive, at least not from the human perspective. They seem to have a mindless appetite for over consumption and destruction. It doesn't make sense to us, they seem like viruses; why would they even bother with conquest? How can we logically reason with or make sense of a race that's motive is not "self-improvement" or adventure. It is scary to think that a species could erase something so immense like an entire species with out any passion, even if it is nefarious, how do we as humans wrap our heads around it?

Why I love Octavia Butler's Writing style and how she conquers sensitive topic with it.....also a random thing about the femal victim role in sci fi.

    Octavia Butler is already so wildly celebrated and recognized, but that won't stop me from doing the same :). I found her writing to be refreshing and flowing; no info dumps, pretentious science explanations that sound like a 12 year old boy wrote it, just pure narrative from a fictional source that is actually experiencing whatever strange new world Octavia drops us into.

    Needless to say, Octavia Butler is into some WEIRD stuff, but in my eyes that's not exactly a deterrent. Her work turns things that could easily be considered campy or simply gross into something interesting and thought provoking, but that's because she digs DEEP and gives every detail of the story special attention and care - but really that's all you need to make any story worth reading.

I think that is what made the first story we read in class so sophisticated - I say while still being mindful of it's terribly disturbing aspects (it would be pretty hard for Butler to downplay those traits anyways). The truth is the weird sexual/farming slavery of humans by aliens is super interesting, and maybe just as plausible as one of the common alien invasion tropes. Besides, the characterization of all of the humans and aliens is incredible, the interpersonal social aspects of post invasion world is not something I had really considered before ( I kind of assumed we'd be mostly dead). I think this story also drew some strong real-life parallels of slavery, abuse, and Stockholm syndrome. Honestly, the way she wrote for the main alien almost made me understand it's side, ALMOST. (did I almost get Stockholm syndromes by Butler?). This story also made me think a lot about how we treat the animals we use for food, clothing, etc. Even in the case of the aliens being superior to humans (as many assume we are to animals), everything they do to the humans seem incredibly wrong; it's even more sickening when you think about how we violate animals in just as inhumane ways (Maybe we don't try to use them to grow our parasitic offspring, but we still do some terrible things that we try to justify.) Overall the power dynamic between the alien and her human is totally disconcerting, it would almost be easier to understand if she was just overtly physically abusive, and did not act as some kind of family member.
          And now for the last little bit that I kind of built up in the title. What I found completely interesting was how I perceived the protagonist, the stereotypical victim character to be female, even thought he was overtly defined as male. While I don't like the fact that I subconsciously assumed that, I think Butler may intentionally written the main character as a doted on, but raped and manipulated young person, in order to make the statement that we are biased to assume that a victim is female, for good or bad reason I'm not sure.

Are AIs and uncontained consciousness the next step for the human race?

     Neuromancer may have been the beginning of the new cyberpunk sub-genre, but the theme of escaping our physical existence in it's ending is pretty common through out the science fiction genre as a whole.
     According to many beliefs, or at least a lot of authors, the best alternative to our current existence is one without flesh. Think about it, in the Christian religion, and many other similar beliefs systems there is the idea that we could eventually be free from our bodies and live in eternal joy (i.e heaven). I don't want to step on any toes here, but it also makes a lot of sense to me that now that we have the distant possibility, with our current progress in technology, we are intrigued by the idea uploading our consciousness or neural makeup to some sort of digital "matrix.", in the same way people yearn for heaven. It makes sense that human's would be into that idea of being free of physical shells - freedom from discrimination, non-mental illnesses, aging, death, etc.
      For Case, when he is taken out of a virtual world where he is limitless, he falls into a path of self destruction and depression. Even at the end when he is given access to hack, he still gets his body back in shape for drug abuse (another type of escape from the physical world). Overall, Case is big in escapism. However his dream is eventually realized by the Necromancer (bringer of neural activity?), and he is allowed to live with Linda forever, as they are both uploaded to the Matrix.

90's Kid's toys + Medical 3-D printing = the scientific advancement we've all been waiting for.

    Have you ever thought to yourself that most band aids are kind of an eye-sore?.. Even the hello kitty kind? Besides, there's just got to be a more effective way to help the skin heal than just slapping a piece of sticky cloth to the skin, right?.... and fun, did we slap skinmention fun?  

   Well lucky you! You're thinking just like the engineers at the Aislinn Incorporated Labs! Here we believe in practicality, innovation, customizability, and style above all. Dreamed up by the same person who claimed thy "could make anything" with a 3-D printer and the genius behind Lisa Frank's marketing, we bring you Slap Skin!  Combining the amazing kinetic abilities of the classic slap on bracelet, and the cutting edge science of printing out tissue made of live human cells. With this amazing invention we promise a sterile and discreet healing of superficial scratches to 3rd degree burns. Just open up your packaged Slap Skin (covered with a sanitizing protectant), press the edge gently to the skin surrounding the wound (little force is necessary with our amazing new design), and wait for the skin adjusting technology to adapt to your healthy skin color, texture, and dimensions of your trauma for the ideal and efficient skin repair. We now offer a 20 pack of standard Slap Skins! for the low price of $50, which should last for about a year (since the individual strips have the ability to cell replicate, on strip should be sufficient for any size scathe)    

       Based off of this medical technology, Aislinn Incorporated has also created a cosmetic version called Slap Style! This is not for tissue repair, but rather harmless and painless body modification. With a quick slap onto the wrist this 2nd layer of skin will spread across the body and cover it with a variety of different colors, patterns, finishes, and or disguises of your choice. This is perfect for the daring fashionista or the undercover spy; either way this is only temporary, as it is absorbed by the bloodstream at the end of the week.  These are perfect for recreational purposes, but also great for corporate uniform (please place a custom order in bulk for us). 

     This is a new product, but we are sure that it's possibilities are endless. Please purchase the product off of our website within the next 24 hours for a 20% discount!

                                                                          

Synthesis between West World and the first 30 minutes of Blade Runner

         So, as the title suggests I've only watched a bit of blade runner, but given the fact I'm neck deep in the HBO show West World (The prospect of a 2nd season is the only thing that has kept my faith in humanity over the last year), I think I can provide at least a semi-intelligent opinion on the ethics of human like and possibly sentient androids.

To get straight to the point, the thing that is really interesting about the seemingly universally acknowledged fear of highly intelligent machines, is that our fear is not really of the machine like qualities, but rather their perceptibly human-like characteristics. Generally, the things we fear in machines are things like empathy, sentience, self-preservation, vengeance, and personal sovereignty. I have two theories that could explain why we have such a fundamental fear of man-like machines.  

Theory 1: To allow machines to posess these qualities would put humans in a state of moral murkiness or ambiguity based on the often inhumane treatment of these machines
      Evidence by how customers treat the hosts in West World. They purge their unacceptable behaviors because they believe, or at least want to believe, that hosts are non sentient which excuses those behaviors.

Theory 1b: A less forgiving addition to theory 1 is that the reason behind humans not wanting to infringe on humane rights of man-like machines because they fear that machines with superior abilities would then try to defend their humanity through violence.
     ie the entire plot of Blade Runner

Theory 2: Man made machines will never be identical to humans, but will instead be so incredibly similar that it would unsettling or creepy to humans. Humans avoid "creepy" things because they are an unknown quantity; should we fear or accept? - we just don't know. The biologically ingrained reaction to the unknown is fear; think Hal's macabre voice. 
     Think about the robot vs human test in Blade Runner; while it is 100% accurate at predicting the classification of the examined, if the only thing separating a man and an advanced robot a flash of non-empathy at a single image, is the difference between man and machine even significant? Who knows? .. eerie. 
  

The End of the X-Files Season 3 - The light at the end of the tunnel

      Towards the end of the X-Files season 3 I could really see the show morphing into the style it would be recognized for today. There was much more of a narrative on the individual character and their relationships, both with main characters and non-main characters. Episode 20 also really latched on to the theme of extra-terrestrial, and made the the main conflict of the show very clear. It was almost like the show finally focused and made a decision of what it wanted to be. Before, the show created show much confusion will all the different types of sci fi, there was a few episodes dealing with religion, ghosts, mutated disease, fortune tellers, and even horoscopes, it was a bit overwhelming.
    I haven't watched season 1 or 2, but I do know it was even more monster of the week and very well could have ended with Mulder's death at the the end. It seems like season 3 was literally and figuratively a Lazarus season. So I am impressed with how they eventually decided to direct the show.
    I read a few summaries and I can see how some of the seemingly unconnected aspects of the show connect, so maybe it's a matter of marathoning through the seasons. It was pretty clever how they make it so the men from that secret government society and the aliens that use the "black sludge" to sort of be working together but also not. It 's hard to place blame on either group because they both did very terrible things, the circumstances of the relations are also very reminiscent of the cold-war. Either way, Mulder did have the right to investigate and be suspicious, the way they were conducting this whole ordeal was pretty unethical.
   Also reading into Mulder's backstory I can understand why he almost intuitively knows if there is some paranormal or extraterrestrial happenings. His biggest flaw though is that he can let his emotions, bias, and paranoia get in the way of his reasoning. He can also be selective with what evidence he pays attention to, even if it confirms supernatural intervention, if it could change the perception of someone he cares about. Like when Skinner is accused of murder for example. I like to see vulnerability in characters, so I like this character development. 

X-files Season 3: mostly meh with a side of "that's kinda cool"

          I've watched most of Season 3 of the x-files and so far it has really challenged my idea of what I consider to be science fiction. Most of the cases go unsolved as far as how exactly the murders happen. They can usually find out who is guilty, except for the cases that seem like there is a large group conspiracy, but the means usually go unexplained. My idea of pure science fiction is that every thing, no matter how wild, has some sort of explanation or clue. This is my main issue with the show, the endings are so vague that I really have trouble coming up with a unique analysis or hypothesis. I really do like how Scully and Mulder act as each other's foil, they are both very intelligent, but show contrast each other well as one is a skeptic and the other is a believer of all things paranormal. I can also appreciate the originality of the show. It's possible that I find the show a little bland is that I have seen so many newer shows that have a similar, but improved style, but I guess I should owe that to the shows success.

        The one episode that I really did like, because it did leave alot of room for analysis and matched up with on of the over arching themes of the show was episode 20: From Outerspace. The plot is that there are 2 - 3 people that could possibly been abducted by aliens, but there is also an equal amount of evidence that it was government conspiracy or even a delusion aided by drugs or psychosis. The only thing you can say is that something spooky happened to everyone, Mulder and Scully included. The ending remark made by the honorary narrator was that we are all alone in our perception. This made me think of all of the other sci-fi we have read that had the same idea, The Frozen Journey stuck out most in my mind as being a dead ringer for this psychological sci-fi. Mulder, which from my perspective seemed to be a weaker less developed charcter in comparison to Scully, was described as being one step away from insanity. This was maybe why I perceived him as being weaker in comparison to Scully, he is very willing to believe and accept the unexplainable and often for emotional reasons. I wonder if this is due somewhat to his damaged childhood, perhaps the make - believe is easier for him to accept because it's less absolute and damning.

      Unfortunately we only had enough time to watch season 3, I will probably watch some other seasons, both earlier and later to see if the more complete character development will help me appreciate the more "monster of the week" episodes. Perhaps there was a story line in there that I was just totally missing due to lack of background info.