Some relaxing reading, as I enter another intensive books phase. I thought reading about humans who want to be machines (and immortal), and humans who want to make machines more human, would prove sufficiently distracting for a long journey. It was. But it’s disturbing how much money is pumped into such research by the gullible/self-obsessed titans of silicon valley (Elon Musk, Peter Thiel of Paypal, Google above all). They much prefer that to solving real real world problems, or thinking about equality, or ecology. Blind technological faith.
And then I read the thoughts of various female music critics, about their relationship to male music that they really like, either espousing deeply misogynistic views, or created by unashamedly misogynistic men. Some of it was enlightening, some of it could have been deeper, sometimes I struggled to imagine how they could find any redeeming features to justify their continuing fandom. (ACDC? Guns and Roses? Eminem?…) And for the more recent music, I’m just too old and out-of-touch to have a proper context. I’d certainly defend Elvis Costello’s Blood and Chocolate album though.
I’ve also watched two films, “Get Out” (very entertaining) and “Phantom Thread” (slow and possibly self-indulgent, but I love Daniel Day-Lewis). I started “Black Panther” but five minutes of Marvel-fantasy was enough.
