Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly
Ta-Nehisi Coates: BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME
Here is the next memoir I read, after Joan Didion’s, as inspired by that NYT list. This is a statement by a black intellectual to his 15-year-old son, about life as a black person and the struggles and dangers he … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture
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Preferred Relativism
A story about the right’s “50-year-plot” to wreck democracy, and attendant thoughts about how conservatives reject one kind of relativism, and embrace another; The credulousness of conservatives; Notes from the fringe: vaccines; rationalizing Hannibal Lecter; Democrats are wolves; wives afraid … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Morality, Science
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Nones, and Genre
Why did the rise of the “nones” begin in the 1990s? Thoughts about how science fiction is, or is not, a “genre”. Here’s an article I stumbled upon today, from 2019 in The Atlantic, by a writer I’ve see a … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Religion, science fiction
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Seculars, Human Nature, Abstraction
Some more abstract, intellectual topics for today. As the rise of ‘nones’ increases, what will society look like in a hundred years? How people are instinctively nice, more often than religions give them credit; An idea from S.I. Hayakawa about … Continue reading
Posted in Morality, Religion, Social Progress
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They’re Losing It
Trump and conservatives deny everything they don’t like by blaming “they” or the “Deep State”; And hurling words like “communist” without meaning; Why are we living in a future dominated by idiots?; Donald Trump doesn’t understand oceans; And the brother … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Politics
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Joan Didion, THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
Inspired by that NY Times list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, I read three short memoirs that I already had copies of in my library. Here’s the first. (These will be briefer ‘short takes’ compared to … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes
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Why Do You “Believe”? Who Do You Trust?
One item for today, about which I think is a key principle. NY Times, Zeynep Tufekci, 12 Aug 2024: The Problem Is Not A.I. It’s the Disbelief Created by Trump. This triggers off the recent news items about Trump’s skepticism … Continue reading
Posted in Epistemology, Politics
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Reason for Hope, Despite
Let’s begin with a positive story. Salon, Rae Hodge, 11 Aug 2024: A daring escape from cynicism: Scientist explains why “hopeful skeptics” are outsmarting doomers, subtitled “A new book from a Stanford neuroscientist aims to prove that cynicism blinds us … Continue reading
Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 5
Final post summarizing this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4. The final three chapters return to the cosmic scope of the book’s overall theme, exploring what we’ve concluded about the far future and the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, Human Nature, Meaning
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Weird and Demented
The weird news story of the day is something Trump said yesterday at a press conference in Florida. Here’s the first place I saw it: Salon, Nandika Chatterjee, 9 Aug 2024: “I call complete B.S.”: Trump made up a story … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Politics
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