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Progress at what cost?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
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Probably you heard about Saudi Arabia's plan for the "Line" - a "revolutionary" living/commercial/city that will when completed extend some hundreds of miles across the desert. Critics have denounced it for the displacement of indigenous peoples along the route, and various other things.
If you're not familiar you should take in their "vision" here: https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline
It looks impressive. I was pretty skeptical, though, still am, I mean - anyone remember the hype about all the "World Islands" built in Dubai? Here's a refresher: The World Islands - hint, most are already eroded and under water.
Now, news that so far "The Line" Project has cost 21, 000 lives - mostly Nepali, Indian and Bangladeshi - with another 100, 000 missing. 100, 000 people missing. One Hundred Thousand.
Anyways, while it will be built, I'm reasonably certain that it won't take even a hundred years for it to be revealed as the colossal folly it is. A place for the new goatherds and survivors of the new stone age to take refuge from the heat, and wonder what in the hell we were thinking...
Link: https://www.archpaper.com/2024/10/documentary-reveals-21000-workers-killed-saudi-vision-2030-neom/
A Voyage to Arcturus
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 145
this, a "Sci-Fi" book written in 1920.
I'll quote a review:
A stunning achievement in speculative fiction, A Voyage to Arcturus has inspired, enchanted, and unsettled readers for decades. It is simultaneously an epic quest across one of the most unusual and brilliantly depicted alien worlds ever conceived, a profoundly moving journey of discovery into the metaphysical heart of the universe, and a shockingly intimate excursion into what makes us human and unique.
After a strange interstellar journey, Maskull, a man from Earth, awakens alone in a desert on the planet Tormance, seared by the suns of the binary star Arcturus. As he journeys northward, guided by a drumbeat, he encounters a world and its inhabitants like no other, where gender is a victory won at dear cost; where landscape and emotion are drawn into an accursed dance; where heroes are killed, reborn, and renamed; and where the cosmological lures of Shaping, who may be God, torment Maskull in his astonishing pilgrimage. At the end of his arduous and increasingly mystical quest waits a dark secret and an unforgettable revelation.
A Voyage to Arcturus was the first novel by writer David Lindsay (1878–1945), and it remains one of the most revered classics of science fiction.
It read rather like one of those AI hallucinations that you can watch on Facebook Videos, the main character Maskull forever morphing, a sort of “Pilgrims Progress” written by a madman, reminding me in tone of Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, no more sci-fi, more a metaphysical investigation into what makes us human, with no clear answers at the end. A long, nightmarish read.
GOLD - Blaise Cendrars
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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...being the marvelous history of General Augustus Sutter
Which being the history of a remarkable man and time in history, told by Cendrars becomes poetry and art. A slender, although marvelous read, from the point of view of a man who can't seem to reconcile the swings of fortune God (and man) have assigned him.
Cendrars is kinder to him than history is, although how much information he had access to is uncertain. The historical accounts currently do not describe him as kindly in his dealings with natives.
You can read the bare bones of his life here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sutter
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