h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

”What is a cynic who snaps out of it even FARTHER? Enough to realize that, despite the gruesomely stupid, self-delusional and abysmally corrupt aspects of human nature... things are getting phenomenally better. And have been for some time?

I mean, which is more amazing? That the Enlightenment is under threat from a collusive cabal of conniving aristocrats, imperialists and extremist nutjobs? Or the fact that this routine and utterly predictable alliance, which ruled every other urban culture for 4,000 years has been staved off repeatedly, till now, by a republic -- and a civilization -- that has kept combining redesign and renewal and revolution with an almost infinite capacity for resilience in the face of repetitious human nature?

Go do Brin’s Exercise... I command you! Go to a street corner, preferably one with a very busy four (or twelve!) way stop signage, where people must negotiate traffic rules every second, with little hand-flicks and nods. Do a slow 360. Notice all the things that are working! The quiet and efficient courtesies, the technologies, the tiny acts of honesty and cooperation. The hidden competence of a myriad professionals that make all the switches turn on time and fill the restaurants with food. Do not let a patch of one square degree pass your view without comment, or noticing something that you took for granted, before! If you finish the turn having counted less than a thousand miracles, start over!"

From David Brin's blog. http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/

What a lovely, heartening piece of blog!

Brin writes operatic but optimistic science fiction. He's unusual among that type in that he does attempt a strong degree of self consistency and consequence, so it doesn't read like fantasy: **fluffy Mercedes Lackey horsies or barely requited angsty of Ann McCaffrey dragons,** it is not.

I had no idea how optimistic until I tried some trial subscriptions to literary magazines every single one of which equated lollygagging within misery with the Good and Artistic.

Brin's an american-style Libertarian, but a pragmatic one, which is a surprising combination.

You know, for someone who says that Interesting Words don't do it for him, you sure use a lot of them! I refer in this case to 'lollygagging'. I've never seen that word spoken by a real person before.

I've just been procrastinating on David Brin's site. I think Gothly might like him.

It's been shown that the English speaking world has been losing its vocabulary. My parents had me late, and my dad was born late in his parent's lives, so I'm several generations behind on this loss, which I attribute to cultural unifications. My speaking manner is quite typical of any-educated-one 20 to 40 years older than me and I and they don't view the way we speak as anything other than pratical or pedestrian. I can (accidentally) regularly flummox people my age with doctorates.

Lollygagging is particularly apropos in this instance, because it implies a certain recalcitrant luxuriance within a larger ennui. One could talk about desperate editors happy to get anything of quality that they mollycoddle the pseudo-weltanschauung that only the inexperienced young can have, but I was hoping for something more intransitive seeming, and lollygag suits that purpose.

It's a good thing that echomikeromeo seems so naturally cheerful, because she's a ferociously powerful writer. Now if she also acquires the deep seductive ability of Oeilladeanna, she could do the Proust thang.



Haven't seen anything new in Od's Journal, I wonder how she's doing.



As best as I can guess, Brin's politics are an approximate qwwwwwwww2match that of the Unitedkingdomese Liberal-Democrats. What party does Gothly belong to?

^ Oghma helping me type.

I would argue that English vocabulary is evolving, not diminishing. The OED seems bigger with every edition. I hear newborn words springing up all the time.

Residing in a country where the national language (Welsh) is dying a slow death thanks to its immutability, I can't help but admire the aliveness and flexibility of the English language. I think that the very fact that it's too popular to be granted the covetous respect allocated to languages like Welsh is what makes it fitter to survive, because it has the freedom to grow and change, and to absorb other languages into itself.

"Lollygagging is particularly apropos in this instance, because it implies a certain recalcitrant luxuriance within a larger ennui. One could talk about desperate editors happy to get anything of quality that they mollycoddle the pseudo-weltanschauung that only the inexperienced young can have, but I was hoping for something more intransitive seeming, and lollygag suits that purpose."



I so enjoy the way you write, Sea Change!

You've reminded me of something Philosopher Friend said to me once; I liked that so much that I wrote it down: "grammatical lackadaisicality all too often leads to obfuscation of meaning."



Oeilladeanna, as you may have realised, is a RL friend of mine: the one I've previously referred to as 'American Writer Friend'. She used her PS here as a travel journal while she was on holiday, and I'm rather sorry to see that she's packed it all up now and left h2g2. But she has a very busy life these days. She says: "I can be extremely impatient, most of the time, and that's why I didn't stick with my Hotel Hootoo webpage."

Anyway, she's awfully flattered by what you said about her writing, and by the fact that you noticed her at all.

She also has this to say: "I used to live in LA, too; in Venice, by the Ambassador Hotel where R Kennedy was shot, near West Hollywood, on La Cienega Boulevard - is he living in West Hollywood?"

So there you have it.

"As best as I can guess, Brin's politics are an approximate qwwwwwwww2match that of the Unitedkingdomese Liberal-Democrats. What party does Gothly belong to?"

Well, it was Lib-Dems up until their head honcho got booted out of the party due to a drinking problem and / or because other party members disagreed with his (very sensible) ideas. Now we don't know who the hell to vote for. The most reliable, caring, sense-talking, active, money-where-his-mouth-is politician in our area is currently a member of Plaid Cymru, the national party for Wales. A shame. There's no way in hell we're gonna vote for a party that's inherently racist, so we might not be voting in the next General Election.