Month: January 2018
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Ersatz moralities
It’s no coincidence that good guy/bad guy movies, comic books and games have large, impassioned and volatile fandoms – even the word ‘fandom’ suggests the idea of a nation, or kingdom. What’s more, the moral physics of these stories about superheroes fighting the good fight, or battling to save the world, does not commend genuine…
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Words were your matter
Science fiction was always far too small a box to contain your writing. Hero is far too small a word to contain what you’ve been to me, and will always be to me. From all of us who are trying to walk away from Omelas: go easy, Starbear. We promise to continue the work.
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I am not sick. The world is sick.
After I learned all this, and what it means for us all, I started to long for the power to go back in time and speak to my teenage self on the day he was told a story about his depression that was going to send him off in the wrong direction for so many…
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“Engineers try to do politics by changing infrastructure.”
From an interview with Fred Turner: What are the “politics of infrastructure”? What does that phrase mean? It means several different things. First, it involves the recognition that the built environment, whether it’s built out of tarmac or concrete or code, has political effects. I was joking earlier about reshaping the Forum, but I shouldn’t…
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Gig alert: “Beneath the city streets: urban infrastructure and its invisibility”, Sheffield Hallam, 1 March 2018
Attention, urbanists and infrastructure-heads who are geographically proximate to Sheffield, UK (or who just really like travelling a long way for seminars): Luke “Bunkerology” Bennett is chairing a panel discussion on 1st March 2018 at Sheffield Hallam University under the title “Beneath the city streets: urban infrastructure and its invisibility”. It’s free to attend, but you’ll…