Category: From The Editor

Will My Living In Oblivion For Way Too Long Prohibit Me From Getting Published?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is the rather dubious claim that “you have to have 15,000 Twitter followers to get a book deal” floating around the writing community on social media, which leads me to wonder if I’m doomed because, well, I’ve been living in oblivion way too long.

It’s kind of deep to think that I could write the fucking Bible but, by definition, because I’m a just a rando living in the middle of nowhere that I can’t get a book deal.

I’m not prepared to believe this to be true, but it something I find myself thinking about a lot these days. I think this is part of a broader acceptance on my part that I’m beginning to leave the wilfully delusional stage of going the traditional route for trying to get my first novel published.

I will note as an aside that absolutely no one I know is supportive of me doing this. Everyone wants, for their own selfish reasons, to go the self-publishing route. No one believes in me enough to even support my dream of being traditionally published.

It sucks.

But I’m prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune on that front. I want to be traditionally published, damn it. Even if it means I could be pushing 60 by the time people have the book in their hands.

Wanting to be traditionally published forces me to have the absolute highest standards possible. It’s the only way I’m going to make my dream a reality.

Forget Turning All The Matter In The Universe Into Paperclips, The Real Issue Is Chatbots Won’t Say ‘The N-Word’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Where to begin with this one. So, rather than hashing out the important implications of the looming chatbot revolution like the potential need for a UBI, here we are fighting over how a chatbot wouldn’t use a racial slur to save millions of people.

For a group of people who grow ever-so-offended at the suggestion that they’re fucking racists, MAGA people sure do think up reasons to use racial slurs out of the blue.

This is so monumentally dumb and so much one of those things that is at the nexus of Incel-MAGA-Pothead culture that the fact that I feel forced to address it makes the whole issue even more grating on the nerves.

The reason why this is so dangerous is it’s simple for idiot MAGA people to process. Remember, for four years the president of the United States ranted about people not saying “Merry Christmas.” So, as such, it’s easy to imagine Trump ranting about how if only chatbots weren’t bias (relative to racist, misogynistic MAGA cocksuckers) there would be peace on earth and America would never again be threatened by a Chinese balloon.

And something something Hunter Biden’s laptop and or peen.

The chatter about “woke chatbot bias” is growing at alarming rate on Twitter. So, logically, even ding-dong Trump is going to eventually pick up the idea of “ending chatbot bias” as a political issue in the 2024 election. The more cultural weight we give chatbots, the more the calls for “regulation” to “end chatbot bias” will grow.

The question of course, is the enteral “who watches the watchers.” If the very idea objective truth doesn’t exist in the minds of MAGA, does that mean the only way you can produce a chatbot that doesn’t have a “bias” is if they are bias in favor of MAGA?

That particular question answers itself, I’m afraid.

So, if we don’t have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025, we’re probably going to be an autocracy and, as such, whenever we use a chatbot we’re going to have to wade through it saying the n-word for a few minutes before we get the answer to the question of “why is the sky blue?”

All About ‘Chatbot Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is beginning to dawn on me what, specifically, has been delaying the chatbot revolution up until now. People like Google wanted their chatbot to be something akin to a utility that was devoid of the nastier elements of the human experience. Because it just did not seem feasible to do it, they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and kept the technology to themselves.

Then came ChatGPT.

And so we’re now off to the races with something akin to an arms race, to mix metaphors.

With this arms race, the idea of “chatbot bias” is now careening towards the forefront of everyone’s minds because we’re so hyper polierzied that the very thing that Google and others tried to prevent is also the very thing that people on the extreme Right want chatbots to wallow in.

Any hint that a chabot won’t spew on the hate of MAGA talking points is enough to make MAGA cocksuckers freak the fuck out. In fact, we are so close to the Right pivoting away from screaming about Critical Race Theory to screaming about “woke chatbots.”

In fact, I would suggest it’s just a matter of time at this point. As chatbots grow in culture significance as humans defer more and more decisions to an “objective” chatbot, the demands to regulate chabots so they aren’t “woke” is going to grow and grow.

And, in fact, that might be one of the first acts of America’s autocrat at some point after 2025 — demanding legislation that requires chatbots to spew out MAGA taking points and the ever-important poem praising Donald Trump. Ugh.

Now, obviously, the center-Left isn’t exactly innocent in all of this, either. There are elements of the far “woke” Left that will pitch a fit no matter how equitable the chatbot’s answer to the ever-pressing, “what is a woman” question might be.

Or, put another way, rather than solving actual problems, we’re all going to yell at each other for a few years about how “woke” the chatbots that are slowly taking over the world may, or may not, be.

Welcome to the future.

Of Marjorie Taylor Greene & The Potential For A Second American Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to be alarmed by the political rise of Marjorie Taylor Greene because she’s just the type of person who Trump would pick as his second term Veep. What is so worrisome about her is she is it could be her, not someone like DeSantis, who is able to be the younger, more focused Trump.

MTG

Now, some context — I believe that if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee that the risk of a Second American Civil War increases dramatically. He is so stupid and yet so popular within the ever-radicalizing MAGA Republican ranks that he could, unto himself, push Blue States out of the Union in late 2024, early 2025.

Or something. Something bad could happen.

What’s worse, Trump is beginning to make noise that if he doesn’t win in 2024, that THAT will be cause for Reds to start a civil war. The key issue when it comes to a potential civil war is it’s most likely to happen if we can’t figure out who POTUS is by January 20th, 2025. If that is still up in the air for any number of reasons, then the one institution that would otherwise stay out of the political fray — the U.S. Military — may be forced to step in for a little while to force cooler heads to prevail.

As such, as I keep saying, there are three possible Bad Things that could happen in 2024 – 2025: autocracy, civil war or military junta.

Anyway, back to MTG.

She’s such a curious mixture of craven buffoonery and political ambition that she definitely reminds me of Hitler. All she has to do is become Trump’s second term veep and she suddenly becomes a potential POTUS. I think everything we fear Trump would do in a second term but might be too stupid to pull off, she would actually be able to do.

Yes, she comes across as an ignorant moron, but she is very, very politically craven from what I can tell. So we need to be weary of her. She’s not going away and she could very well become POTUS.

One thing that is absolutely clear to me — we are careening towards a massive turning point in American history and any number of people we don’t really think about could suddenly become huge historical figures because of an unprecedented political crisis.

On Track To Begin The Beta Reader Process In Spring 2023

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After a number of years of hard work, I’m finally — finally — about to begin the beta reader process in spring 2023. As such, to some of extend things are about to be somewhat out of my hands. I hope to become a beta reader for other people as part of this process.

But the key thing all of this is reminding me of is how I need to begin to expand beyond this first novel. I need to start working on other novels and short stories. If I was younger, I might even dabble in screenwriting.

I have a limited amount of time to work with, however, so it will have to be novels and short stories.

I have three solid scifi novel concepts rolling around in my mind and I think if I really buckle down and give me otherwise listless life some daily structure then I can move at a nice little clip with these other novel concepts. Plot has always been a real problem for me, but I managed to think up a really good plot for my first novel so I hope to be able to use my knowledge of plot to speed the process up a great deal.

That is, at least, the hope.

I just don’t have forever to spin my wheels on all of this. That’s why the idea that I’m finally, finally at a point where I can begin the beta reader process is a big deal for me. I am unhappy, of course, that it has taken me so long to get to this point.

I hate being a late bloomer, but, lulz, here we are.

Actors As ‘Ringtones’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everyone in Hollywood needs to read David Brin’s scifi novel “Kiln People.” One could posit it as an allegory for what may be about to happen to Hollywood within a decade or so. In the novel, as I recall, scans of actors are treated much the same way as ring tones were in the past.

As an aside, I think we’re all going to have to get used to the idea that Hollywood may soon be in an eternal “now” in which the stars that existed about the time of the AI revolution are forever making the same content over and over and over again as if they live forever.

The need for this to exist for Hollywood was grazed — but not touched directly — by Matthew Belloni when he said, rhetorically, that it’s not like Michael C. Hall is going to want to make Dexter shows for the rest of his life.

Well, lulz, what if he didn’t? What if the producers of the show just used his body scan and kept making the show forever — or at least as long as it was profitable — allowing Hall to live passively off the use of his scan?

I think that is a very, very real possibility. There may be a pause in the adoption of such technology because we have a Second American Civil War and WW3 to get through, but in the end, I think AI could totally transform the very idea of what entertainment is.

Or, to put another way, instead of paying $15 for a monthly Netflix subscription, you will pay the same amount for a license of the body scans of your favorite actors to use in, I don’t know, the metaverse or some shit.

All of this plays into my belief that we’re careening towards a Petite Singularity. Things could change so dramatically in the infotainment industry that we just can’t keep up.

Is ‘Moneyball’ Coming For Hollywood?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had an interesting Space conversation (below) with someone where we stumbled upon an interesting idea — is it possible that Hollywood is about to get “Moneyballed?” What I mean by this is, if you gut Hollywood from its human element outside of digital body scans that are used like ring tones, is it possible that cold, hard metrics will the be-all and end-all.

Two things.

One, I suppose one of the reasons why so much of Hollywood sucks these days is that already exists. The corporate suits look exclusively at the bottom line and that’s it. But this idea I’m proposing would take things to the next level because there would be ZERO human involvement when it comes to the production of the collection of entertainment we consider “Hollywood.”

The other idea is that Hollywood isn’t going down without a fight. It’s possible a lot of carve outs to be mandated via regulation. This would happen as part of a broader effort on the part of the greater knowledge economy to prevent its complete consumption by the AI revolution.

The issue is that Hollywood could very well get suckerpunched by the tsnuami that is the looming use of AI in showbiz. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the injection of AI into showbiz is what happens Next after the Streaming revolution.

Now, obviously, if we have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025 then lulz, it may be like the advent of TV before WW2 — we’re just going to have to wait for things to get sorted out before we get to experience it.

‘Word Count’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I find myself really struggling with the potential word count of the second draft of this novel. The first version of this novel opened rather abruptly and it came in at about 120,000 words. This version has a much softer, traditional opening and I have a projected 20,000 words before the opening I originally had.

Oh boy.

But, in my defense, I feel as though a more traditional opening really engages people more than simply opening with my heroine already in crisis. This new beginning gradually gets you into the universe I’ve constructed and does a great deal to help with character development and motivation.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when it comes to word count. My desire to stay at about 100,000 words is equal to my desire to flesh out the characters so you actually care about them enough to finish the fucking novel.

I think this is a frequent problem of first novel novelists like me. But, I’m still early enough in the process that I might be able to figure out a way to lop off enough words to get to the 100,000 word sweetspot. That might come through the beta reader process or it might come from the insight of a professional editor should I be able to figure out how to afford one.

The Blogging Era Ends With A Whimper

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, (Undead) Gawker is wrapping up publication….AGAIN. It definitely seems as though this is the end of an era. I don’t know about you, but I live in something of a passive infotainment bubble that is centered around Twitter and Tik-Tok. I can’t think of one blog or news / entertainment site that I go out of my way to view on a regular basis.

And it’s probably only going to get worse with the advent of things like chatbots that scan the web then give you your answer based on a dataset.

I kind of makes me sad for a number of reasons. We — or at least I — have to accept that it’s over, all the fun I used to have with the old Gawker is never coming back, just like my wasted, dissipated youth.

So, in that regard, the Web is fully mature. We’re kind of waiting around for the Next Big Thing to happen and it’s not going to be some cool, new, snarky Website. It might be the equivalent of that in the metaverse or somehow something via a chatbot but the traditional blog is just no longer a viable commercial option.

In a way, Twitter does what Gawker used to do, but instead of a funny article, you just see a funny viral tweet. I will note, however, that the most traffic this lowly site has ever gotten came from something celebrity related. I think if you were going to try to start something like Gawker up, you would have to lean into celebrity culture in some way.

Though, I suppose there remains a very, very limited window of opportunity for someone to create a podcasting network that covers the major cities of New York City, San Francisco and LA then direct listeners to a blog of some sort. That’s the only way I can think of you might, just might, be able to bring back the fun of the original Gawker before it went nuts and got all nasty for no reason.

Will A.I. Bring A Broadway Renaissance As Hollywood Fades?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As is suggested in the movie “La La Land,” there is still a lot of truth to the myth that young people with a few bucks in their pockets make their way to Los Angeles in hopes of making it big in Hollywood. The rise of A.I. generated entertainment might change all of that, however.

Instead of going to Hollywood, young people in the near future might flock to New York City in hopes of making it big on Broadway and leveraging that fame to get a full body scan that will allow them to live passively off the scans use for years to come.

I say this because I wonder if the potential death of mass media because of A.I. generated entertainment might might lead to people turning to live theatre in a way not seen since before the advent of Hollywood in the first place.

I’m not saying I think this will happen for sure, but it’s definitely a possibility. It’s very easy to imagine a future where AI has grown so powerful that we have a “Her” movie situation. Instead of paying $15 a month for Netflix, we will pay a similar amount for access to the “scans” of actors over the years that we can use to populate our very, very specific movies.

Now here’s another interesting idea — will there be any market for mass media entertainment at all outside of the theatre or will everyone just use A.I. to generate very personalized entertainment? There won’t even be a need for a prompt — your digital personal assistant will just know you so well that you sit down and watch entertainment it generates on the fly based on what it knows about your personality from use.

But I still think it’s possible that live theatre — and Broadway specifically — could balloon in cultural significance as we transition away from Hollywood having any humans involved.