Dune Review, Part 3
Exiled into the desert and taken to the Fremen.The cast is strong, and the visuals are impressive, and I’m excited to see how they wrap everything up in the sequel.
Read More ›CategoryArts & Culture
Dune Review, Part 2
A long-expected betrayalThe movie does a better job than the book in covering several of the intricate details involved.
Read More ›
Why You Should Read More Fiction
The mental benefits for reading good stories are many.When looking for “solutions” to today’s mental health crisis in the United States, particularly among the millions of men who are checking out of society, reading fiction may not immediately come to mind. However, a new article from Psychology Today argues that reading fiction is “essential” for today’s men. The author of the article, psychologist Jett Stone, focuses on men in part because today’s literary market is largely geared towards women, and fiction and femininity are often closely associated. Nonetheless, he believes that reading fiction can benefit both women and men. He writes, Recent research indicates that reading fiction fosters critical thinking by presenting ideas subtly and in more roundabout ways than nonfiction. One study of adolescents found that frequent fiction readers possessed more Read More ›
The Strike is Over
After almost five months, the Writers Guild of America's (WGA) strike against Hollywood has ended.After almost five months, the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) strike against Hollywood has ended. WGA and Hollywood came to an agreement that includes higher employee wages and limitations in the ways artificial intelligence (AI) can be employed. AI has been at the forefront of the moviemaking conversation for the past few months, and for good reason. TV and movie writers are concerned with how the technology might take away their jobs or otherwise cheapen the quality of TV scripts. Ryan Faughnder writes for the Los Angeles Times, The new WGA contract includes language that regulates the studio’s use of AI but also provides flexibility to the guild’s members. Companies must disclose to writers if any material given to a Read More ›
Dune Review, Part One
Despite the cynical ways of the Bene Gesserit sect, a deeper providence guides the story in Dune.Despite the cynical ways of the Bene Gesserit sect, a deeper providence guides the story in Dune.
Read More ›
Novelists Against AI
17 authors are suing OpenAI for copyright infringement17 prominent authors including George R.R. Martin and John Grisham are suing OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT, for copyright infringement and “theft,” according to the Associated Press (AP). The authors are among many in the creative field who are expressing concern over the ethics of AI use. A spokesperson for the Authors Guild said that it’s imperative to stop AI’s theft to preserve America’s “incredible literary culture,” according to the AP. Hillel Italie reports, The lawsuit cites specific ChatGPT searches for each author, such as one for Martin that alleges the program generated “an infringing, unauthorized, and detailed outline for a prequel” to “A Game of Thrones” that was titled “A Dawn of Direwolves” and used “the same characters Read More ›
Arrival Review, Part 3
Investigating the meaning of time and languageArrival is a movie worth watching if you’re willing to not think about it too hard.
Read More ›
Arrival Review, Part 2
On the strangeness of a language telling the futureWhen she asks why the aliens want to help humanity, the aliens respond by saying they will eventually need humanity’s help.
Read More ›
Arrival Review, Part 1
Nobody behaves like they should for the first ten minutes. They act, dare I say, alien.Arrival is an interesting movie. It’s well-shot, well-acted, and well-written. The trouble is the script makes some strange choices in the beginning and I just wasn’t persuaded by the movie’s twist at the end. The story starts out with a montage where Louise is raising her daughter, but the child tragically dies of some unknown illness, presumably cancer. The viewer is led to conclude that this is a flashback, but if one listens to the monologue Louise delivers, she says plainly that she’s explaining when the child’s story begins, if there are beginning at all, which is something she no longer believes. This basically means that the entire movie is a flashback, but the viewer is not supposed to notice Read More ›
Oliver Anthony, Music, and Human Exceptionalism
Honest music speaks to the heart and brings us closer together.If you’ve been online at all for the last few weeks, chances are you’ve come across headlines about the folk/country singer Oliver Anthony, whose song “Rich Men North of Richmond” went viral in August. The song, a broad critique of elite power in Washington D.C., (Democrat and Republican) has gained both applause and fierce critique, but for the most part, seems to have deeply resonated with the general American public. Psychologist Jordan B. Peterson recently had Anthony on his podcast, discussing music, entrepreneurship, and virality. One thing is clear about Anthony’s songs: they’re honest, and people are attracted to that. Peterson noted in their conversation that authenticity is a sign of brilliance in artists, and how that sort of honesty Read More ›
The Life We’re Looking For: A Book Review
Andy Crouch's book on technology and human flourishing calls us to resist the urge to control and open ourselves up to deep relationshipsEvery so often a book comes along that puts a finger on the cultural moment in a way that directs, elucidates, convicts, and encourages.
Read More ›
Wrapping Up the Westworld Series
Ultimately, the moral of the story is transhumanismThe first time I watched Westworld, I remember enjoying it, but upon revisiting the series, my opinion of it has dropped a great deal. There are a variety of problems. First, it’s a bait and switch. It teases the idea of showing how robots can come to life, and it plays with your expectations for most of the series. It even goes as far as to discuss theories like The Bicameral Mind, and The Turing Test. Then, in the last episode, it confirms what the viewer has been slowly growing to suspect. The robots had been coming to life the entire time, and Ford had been wiping their memories. The show says that Ford programmed the robots to experience everything Read More ›
Westworld Episode 10 Review (Part Two)
Welcome to the dark end of the journeyLast time, Teddy had just finished saving Dolores from the Man in Black, who turned out to be William all along. He takes her to the coast because that was where he promised to take her when they were performing their pre-programmed loop. However, the coast is apparently not very far because as Dolores dies in his arms, Teddy starts reciting a campy monologue, and then shuts down while the board applauds the speech. Even when they’re trying to escape their loop, the robots still, somehow, find themselves trapped in yet another one of Dr. Ford’s narratives. Dr. Ford appears, addresses the crowd, then orders for Teddy to be cleaned up, and for Dolores to be taken to a nearby Read More ›
What Oppenheimer Teaches Us About Today’s Cultural Moment
Let us hope we have the wisdom to take heed of the messages the movie communicates.No one gained from Oppenheimer’s fall. Not only was the scientist’s career destroyed and life ruined, but also the country was deprived of benefiting from his intelligence.
Read More ›
AI “Art” Can’t Be Copyrighted, Judge Rules
Copyright entails original, human creation, which AI images don't reflectA federal judge has ruled that AI-generated artwork can’t legally be attributed to the person who prompted the work, according to The Verge. AI-generated artwork systems like DALL-E and Midjourney, despite their impressive capabilities, have sparked debate and legal controversies regarding the rights of artists and whether AI images should be treated as independent and original creations. For United States District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell, AI art isn’t original and therefore can not be copyrighted. (RELATED: Will Stability AI Go Down in Court? | Mind Matters) In justifying her decision, Howell said that copyright always involves a human hand. Wes Davis reports, In her decision, Judge Howell wrote that copyright has never been granted to work that was “absent Read More ›
Westworld Episode 10 Review (Part One)
The maze isn't the only thing that's hard to navigate in this episode.I’ll start out with the most irrelevant plot first because almost no screen time is devoted to it, and it amounts to nothing in the end anyway. Hale successfully convinces the Board to fire Ford, not that he really cares. But Hale has been convinced this entire time that Ford is going to delete the park’s data out of spite. So, after Theresa is killed, she enlists Sizemore, a jaded writer who works for the park, to smuggle the data out through one of the decommissioned robots. This plan doesn’t work; however, because all the robots wake up by the end of the episode, and the data is lost in the vengeful horde. So, it’s a plot point that goes Read More ›
Literature and Personal Consciousness: Why AI Can’t Speak to You
AI can never intend meaning like a human author canOne non-computable aspect of great literature is evident: a personal consciousness was responsible for creating it.
Read More ›
A Warning From the Unpublished Preface to Orwell’s Animal Farm
Only discovered in 1971, the Preface offers George Orwell’s critical but neglected insights into the nature of censorship in a free societyOrwell noted that the intellectual censorship he encountered was spontaneous — not a campaign or conspiracy — just a sense that people shouldn’t read his work.
Read More ›
Westworld Episode 9 Review
Bernard learns the truthEpisode nine is fast paced, but if you’re paying attention, the grand twist is obvious, and I found it a little irritating. In the next review, we’ll discuss the conclusion of Westworld.
Read More ›
Barbie: A Subtle Critique of Transhumanism?
Reviews for the new "Barbie" movie abound. But have most of them missed the point?Since its release in July, Barbie has proved as controversial as it has popular. Its joint release alongside Oppenheimer has had movie theaters across the country teeming with “Barbenheimer” fans, those zealous people who watched both movies on the same day in an unprecedented feat of pink glitz and existential dread. But what is Barbie about? Is it a takedown of the patriarchy, a gentle comedy, or something a bit more subtle and powerful? The reviews have ranged between harsh critique and lavish praise. With the flood of commentary, though, have most people missed a central and yet subtle point? Elayne Allen, writing for Public Discourse, offers an alternative interpretation of the movie which might have bypassed the imaginations of Read More ›