Here I am in Melbourne ...

... at the worldcon. Just had dinner with Gregory Benford and others. Have caught up with lots of other folks. Tomorrow I have my first program item for the convention - this one a panel on franchise writing, with Paul Cornell, Karen Miller, and George Ivanov.

Moderation on

I'm going to be a lot scarcer for the next couple of weeks, so it's a semi-blog break. I'm also turning moderation on so the place doesn't get clogged up with spam, crazy death threats, etc., while I'm not around so much to clean it out. Keep commenting. Sane, bona fide comments will be approved, though perhaps not immediately.

Mike Carey and Clay Mann rock - X-Men Legacy # 239

I've just read X-Men Legacy #239 and I've gotta say that Mike Carey and Clay Mann are still doing a wonderful job interpreting the universe of X-Men. Superhero comics can't be judged by the same criteria as novels and short stories: apart from anything else, there's a need to make the action move very quickly, even at the risk of overriding character for plot ... not to mention a kind of licensed recklessness about using coincidences, and of course the inherent implausibility of the whole set-up with all these superhuman beings running around. But there are standards for pace, skilled interpretation and development of long-running characters, and narrative risk-taking, as when Marvel took the unlikely but (to my mind) successful decision to hook up goody-goody Scott Summers (Cyclops ... who has become much darker) with decadent and cynical Emma Frost.

Carey's interpretation of the main characters in this arc - Rogue, Magneto, and three of the young students - is brilliant. We get a bit of fun in the opening pages as they quickly demolish a few gigantic Sentinel robots who are causing trouble in Mumbai, and it goes on from there with lots of twists and turns, some of them laugh-out-loud funny.

I'm enoying the tension between Rogue and the rejuvenated Magneto (he was rejuvenated to about 30, way back in the 1970s in real-world time ... and about 10 years have since passed within the diegesis). It's long been established that these two are attracted to each other, and they once stayed together for a time in one of Magneto's Antarctic bases ... but Mags managed to alienate Rogue before they could even start an actual love affair. He's continued to alienate her since, not least by his ongoing habit of killing people (usually bad guys, but still ...) right before her eyes - something he's promised to cut down on. Even now that he's sane and more-or-less one of the good guys, Magneto remains obsessed, overbearing, and ruthless, but Rogue can't help liking him for some reason, even though he also drives her nuts. She totally loses her cool with him in this issue when he tells her to use her powers to violate another person's mind to find out the truth about her. I love all this soap opera!

Please, oh corporate rulers at Marvel Comics, keep things more or less like this - developing the scenario rather than trashing it. It would be boring, and a let-down, if someone decided that it's time to make Magneto go psychotic again and turn back into an outright villain. Ho hum to that. He's much more interesting and fun in this anti-hero mode. Meanwhile, the current X-Men set-up is fascinating overall, with many of the heroes and quite a few former villains having united in the face of adversity on their island that they call Utopia, off the coast of San Francisco. Scott Summers is now in charge of a small nation of mutants and assorted misfits, and his field orders are (usually) accepted by the core X-Men ... but he's flanked by uber-powerful counsellors whom he needs for support as much as they need him for legitimacy. The future possibilities for intrigue, clashing visions, and political conflicts are endless.

For now, Carey has been building up suspense through the current Legacy arc by showing us from time to time what's going on with the Children of the Vault - a city of superhumans who consider the X-Men their bitter enemies. As issue # 239 draws to a close, Magneto, Rogue, and the kids are about to have a show-down with what looks like an angry and very powerful team sent by the Children of the Vault. Cool!

I'm a big fan of Clay Mann's artwork - he interprets the characters astutely, showing them as beautiful (of course, these are superheroes!) but not absurdly so. Even lizard-boy Anole looks like a rather handsome reptile, while Indra is a young hunk if you go for purple skin tones. Rogue and Loa look, respectively, like an attractive young woman of about 25 and a pretty-but-gawky teenage girl. They don't appear hypersexualised and anatomically improbable, but are much more like real women. Their movements are realistic, and all the characters are portrayed at times in the awkward positions of people being photographed in motion and unawares. Magneto is physically imposing, but he could still pass as a reasonably normal athletic man of about 40. I like the way they are all wearing street clothes throughout, on what was not intended to be a combat mission. More generally, Mann is technically superb, with imaginative angles on the characters and events.

All in all, I'm loving this creative team and this current arc. Keep it up, guys!

A blast from the past - Simon Brown's review of Dreaming Down-Under

I don't think I saw this at the time. Jenny came across it and drew it to my attention. Quote:

Russell Blackford's "The Soldier in the Machine" introduces us to Rhino: "Two metres tall in his scuffed leather Nikes, plus the gray horn implant arching up out of the top of his forehead, he's two-hundred kilos of beef and steroids …"

A real charmer, and bodyguard to Honey Fantasia, who performs in a "miracle band". They arrive in Bangkok at the bequest of the mysterious Colonel, a dealer in high-tech bioware who needs to deliver a package to a research lab in Adelaide. While in Bangkok, Rhino meets a couple of SACIDs, people modified to have "superinstantaneous cognition", basically the ability to "… evade before you shoot; … [correct] before you evade." They are almost superhuman in their ability to take on any opponent and win. The problem is, the Colonel's business rivals also have SACIDs to call upon, and Rhino is an essential part of the plan to get the package out of Bangkok and to its buyer.

As with Williams' story, we have a whole future world here that is dramatically different from our own. Many of the changes are only hinted at, but the impression is of a society dominated by global tech and communication companies, and under the sway of enhancing drugs and incredibly complex bioware. Blackford convinces the reader that this is the future we will have, with all its gritty, dark and forbidding particulars. A kind of cyberpunk on speed.

Blackford's universe, power of description, use of dialogue and sharply delineated characters, makes "The Soldier in the Machine" a great read.

CFI gets it wrong ... then gets it right

When I saw this statement, released by the Center for Inquiry a couple of days ago, I was horrified. Over the weekend, I've been mentally composing my detailed response. I'm still concerned that such a statement was ever issued and I hope that there will be wider consultation before the CFI ever again goes down such a path. I for one would have been opposing the statement loudly if anyone had asked my opinion.

Fortunately, the statement has been withdrawn and replaced by something that I fully agree with. All I need to say about the original statement is that I disagree vehemently with the idea that religious houses of worship should be banned from the vicinity of Ground Zero, the World Trade Center site. I don't see how else the statement can be interpreted, but I don't need to offer my full reasons for disagreeing with it, as I thought I'd have to do.

It seems that wiser heads at the CFI have prevailed, so congratulations to the organisation for getting this one right, even if an initial error was made. The swift retraction of the original statement restores my trust considerably. Hopefully, no illiberal statements of policy will issue from the CFI again.

Just briefly, my position on the Muslim centre being established a couple of city blocks from Ground Zero is that it should meet the same zoning regulations as a cinema, a shop, a secular cultural centre, a business's corporate headquarters, a Christian church, or whatever else might be put there. If it causes no more problems for the physical amenity of other people than those other things would, it should be able to go ahead on the same basis.

The CFI now agrees with me:

CFI maintains that an Islamic center, including a mosque, near Ground Zero, in and of itself, is no different than a church, temple, or synagogue. It is undeniable that the 9/11 terrorists were inspired by their understanding of Islam, and that currently there are far more Islamic terrorists in the world than terrorists of other faiths, but those facts are not relevant to the location of the Islamic center, absent evidence that terrorists are involved in this endeavor, and there is no such evidence.

The mere fact that some might find the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero offensive is not relevant. It's true that some kinds of extreme offence shade into harm and are cognisable by the law - e.g. if you nauseate me by defecating in front of me on a tram. But in a case like that there are also public health issues, so mere offence will not be the only consideration. In any event, the law should not generally be banning something solely because it causes offence to certain others, especially if it's not extreme in-your-face offence of the kind that produces nausea or disturbs the peace. It's most certainly not enough that the mere idea of something happening offends certain people. It would be nice if we could all keep the Millian harm principle in mind in these public policy debates.

In the end, there should be no impediment to the proposed Muslim centre merely because some people find the idea of such a thing in the vicinity of Ground Zero offensive. If the centre meets ordinary zoning provisions, that should be the end of the story as far as the law is concerned.

Of course, we can still investigate and criticise the beliefs and activities of the people involved with the centre. Christopher Hitchens has been doing that, and I applaud him for it, but he's made it clear that this is completely different from calling for the centre's prohibition. He's been able to combine tolerance, in the relevant sense, with criticism. That's the standard we should all be aiming at.

Edit: It seems that the original statement has now been removed from the site, which may be a good thing as it only creates confusion to leave it there while superseding it with something else.

Man-eating giant squid arise from the depths like Cthulhu!!

So it seems.

Millions of killer giant squid are not only devouring vast amounts of fish they have even started attacking humans.

Two Mexican fishermen were recently dragged from their boats and chewed so badly that their bodies could not be identified even by their own families.

Oh noes! I wonder whether they are also vampire squid.

Election for board of Humanity+

The transhumanist organisation Humanity+ has just held an election for three vacancies on its board. The successful candidates were Max More, Howard Bloom, and Thomas McCabe (whom I don't know either personally or by reputation - I assume it's not the Scottish politician of the same name).

It's nice to see Max More there, in particular; that's a big step towards repairing some of the deep rifts within transhumanism. There's still the small matter that transhumanism covers such a wide range of positions, some of them more plausible than others ... but this is a pleasing outcome, and I wish all of the successful candidates well. There was an impressive talent pool among the other candidates, so good luck to them, too, in their future projects.

Currently reading: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

I'm reading The Windup Girl somewhat belatedly, as it's now much too late to vote for the Hugo Awards. Maybe I'll have a bit more to say about the book tomorrow, but meanwhile I'll just observe that I can see why it won the Nebula Award for best novel and must surely be a favourite for the Hugo Award.

The narrative seemed to start rather slowly, though perhaps that was just me being impatient until I got to know and care about the characters - Bacigalupi depicts events in almost excessive detail, and this was a bit hard to take in the early pages when I had no handle on the people these things were supposedly happening to. However, I've slowed down, I've given the book some close attention without too many other distractions, and I'm getting to know these desperate people and their struggles to survive in a bleak 22nd-century Bangkok that Paolo Bacigalupi portrays with colour and texture. The characters are often reduced by their almost Hobbesian circumstances to cunning, dishonesty, and treachery, but in many cases you can't really blame them, given what they are up against in various ways.

Have any of y'all read it?

Edit: Some last comments, now I've finished the book: first, I do think this would be a worthy Hugo Award winner. I continue to like the way we are led to sympathise with a cast of characters who are all very flawed people but whom we are led to understand, and to see why they act as they do in order to survive in a harsh environment. At one point, it looks as if the book will lead to a happy ending for the main characters, but then there are some (logical) plot turns, and nothing so simple takes place. Some survive, but not all. Life goes on, though with changes (and with hints of a sequel, of course).

I met Bacigalupi in Montreal last year, but did not know his work at the time. He's an impressive talent whose career will be worth following.

New issue of JET now complete

The new issue (volume 21, issue 1) of the Journal of Evolution and Technology, devoted to Nietzsche and European posthumanisms, is now complete. This issue takes off in response to an article on Nietzsche and transhumanism by Stefan Sorgner, published in March last year; it contains a mix of full articles and shorter responses by William Sims Bainbridge, Max More, and others. We are hoping to publish a further response by Stefan Sorgner in JET 21(2).

Meanwhile, have a look a the current issue, which contains some fascinating and sometimes contentious material. Amongst other items, I recommend More's reflections on Nietzsche (and the German philosopher's influence on More's own thinking) and Ilia Stambler's historical study of precursors to transhumanism in the fin-de-siècle and early twentieth century. Much of the discussion is potentially controversial, so we also welcome the submission of articles that seek to take up any of the issues raised by the contributors. It remains our goal to encourage high quality debate on such topics as emerging technologies, transhumanist ambitions, and the human future (the nearest thing to my personal editorial manifesto can be found here).

Freedom of religion - Quinn O'Neill adds to the confusion

As I said in a comment over at Butterflies and Wheels, I am sick of the way current debates about freedom of religion and criticism of religion show the most elementary misunderstandings. Freedom of religion is all about - and has always been about - the state not persecuting people on the basis that they fail to adopt the state's preferred religion.

In essence, freedom of religion means that the state will not impose a preferred religion (which protects believers from other religions, as well as non-believers) and nor will it single out an especially dispreferred religion for persecution. In any event, if it does so it will need a secular reason (e.g. if an extreme religious cult is committing acts of violence and the circumstances are such that enforcing the ordinary law is inadequate and it's necessary to suppress the cult itself). This will almost never be the case.

By analogy, Soviet communism was a genuinely dangerous quasi-religion, but most of us now agree that there was not a good case for the attempts to suppress it that were carried out in the US and Australia, among other places. If I ever see the equivalent of the McCarthy trials applied to a religion and its followers, I'll protest loudly.

The concept is not all that difficult. Historically, it was necessary to stop the situation of religions jostling for the power of the state in order to impose themselves on others and to persecute rivals by means of fire and sword. O'Neill would do well to study the history of the religious wars and persecutions in Europe, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries but going way back to classical antiquity, to get an idea what the doctrine is really aimed at preventing.

A commitment to freedom of religion means a commitment to avoid the jostling of rival religious groups to obtain and employ the power of the state. It is not a commitment to refrain, as individuals, from criticising the intellectual credibility, moral authority, or social conduct of religious organisations, leaders, and communities. Indeed, widespread commitment to freedom of religion is much easier to achieve in a society where the freedom  to criticise religion - an important aspect of freedom of speech - is widely accepted and actually exercised. If we want to ensure that no religion can get its hands on state power, we should encourage an attitude that no religion is beyond criticism and satire. Religious freedom is likely to flourish in an environment where the various rival religions are not given any particular respect, where they are just as open to criticism as, say, rival political programs and ideologies.

It's a cause of endless frustration to me that this reasonably simple set of concepts - concepts that should not even be controversial in any liberal democracy - is so often misrepresented.

This long post at 3quarksdaily is the kind of thing that frustrates me. The author, Quinn O'Neill, says some things that I agree with. But when she talks about freedom of religion she has things totally backwards. Her view on this is not only fundamentally wrong - it's also very damaging. It contributes to the current confusion about a matter of very great importance. O'Neill promotes a false and dangerous idea: the idea that religious views should be given some sort of special respect by individuals who do not wield the power of the state. No. No. No. Really I'm sorry, but we can't jump hard enough on this sort of nonsense.

O'Neill concludes: Success will be most likely if atheists and religioius moderates unite for a common goal; not the eradication of religion, but a securely secular society that optimizes well-being and respects our most cherished freedoms. 

Yes, that's what we should aim at - a secular, free society. I agree. But O'Neill doesn't even understand what our cherished freedoms are. One of them is the freedom to criticise ideas that we disagree with, including religious ideas, and to criticise individuals and organisations that wield social power, including religious organisations and their leaders. She is actually asking us not to exercise that particular cherished freedom, but what's the point of having freedom of speech it if you don't exercise it? She doesn't understand that a securely secular society will be one that facilitates the very behaviour she is arguing against, i.e. robust criticism of ideas, organisations, and people who wield social power. That's what we should be uniting to support.

O'Neill puts on airs as if she is an expert on freedom of religion, but she is obviously ignorant about it. She claims:

Personal and vitriolic attacks on religious individuals are also inconsistent with religious freedom. If we value religious freedom, respect for people’s right to hold irrational beliefs is in order (so long as the beliefs don’t infringe on the rights of others). Respecting freedom of religion means accepting the fact that not everyone will freely choose our worldview. If we encourage people to think for themselves, we must accept that others will come to different conclusions.

Ugh. This is all horribly confused. Where do I even start in clearing it up?

There is no in-principle conflict at all between supporting freedom of religion and making merely verbal attacks, even personal and vitriolic ones, on others. These two things are orthogonal  to each other. Making such attacks is not something I generally favour, but it has nothing to do with freedom of religion.

Freedom of religion is about the state not imposing its preferred worldview by force. It is about people having a political right against the state not to be persecuted or to have a religion inflicted on them coercively. It is not about individuals, operating below the state's protective umbrella, being civil to each other in discussion. The latter is often a good idea, of course, and I'm not a fan of some of the less civil comments that I see in blogosphere even from people who are on my side of an issue. But civility of discourse is an ideal that applies to all areas of debate and has nothing to do with freedom of religion in particular. Civility is nice, and I support it in most circumstances, but people can be uncivil in debate about religion without thereby being against freedom of religion.

They are only against freedom of religion if they argue that the might of the state should be brought to bear to persecute those with whom they disagree. Some people do say that, of course: I've seen random commenters on some websites say that religion, or certain religions, should be banned. But that's a very naive position. It's not what any of the serious contributors to the current debates are saying. If someone prominent like Christopher Hitchens says such a thing, and it's drawn to my attention, I'll be right here to denounce him or her, just as I'm denouncing O'Neill.

Frankly, Quinn O'Neill is tying herself up in knots. To the extent that it concerns freedom of religion, her post lacks intellectual merit. She has freedom of speech, so she gets to write whatever nonsense she wants without the power of the state being brought to bear to shut her up. But the rest of us likewise have freedom of speech, and we get to point out when she is writing nonsense.