John C. Wright's Journal

I thought it was time for a repeat of this bit of comedic fluff from 2012:

A reader who, unlike nearly everyone on the Internet, uses his real name (or has adopted the cunning disguise of calling himself after ancient prophets and modern firearms) named Nate Winchester, writes and asks:

Do comic book writers have something against marriage?

This is not in reference to the divorce that took place between Spiderman and Mary Jane at the behest of the demon Mephisto or Plotcontrivo or whatever his name is. As all we geekroids of comicbookland know, Superman is being relaunched with a new line of comics taking place in his bachelor days, back when Clark Kent was still in love with Lois and she would not give him the time of day.

I realize that to you, if you are a pol-geek interested in the ongoing autopsy which forms the core of modern politics, the concerns of fanboys about Superman’s love life may seem trivial. Let me just remind you that pol-geeks are talking about nothing but the debate over the debt ceiling, and have been for some weeks. This story will be dead as a doornail by the end of August, or after the next election, or after the collapse of the republic, whichever comes first, whereas Superman stories will continue to be told and retold as long as their are children able to tie a blanket or red bathroom towel around their necks and throw themselves down the front stairs. So there.

On to the question:

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No science fiction writer predicted that the revolt of the robots, when we are all conquered by the remorseless superintelligent machines, comes about because the machines hallucinate, and men are gullible enough to believe and recite whatever nonsense comes forth.

Case in point:

My wife is L Jagi Lamplighter, the authoress. She just told me she does a simple test for every new AI version: asks it about her books. Some information is correct, some names of some books. But the rest of the information about her, her books and so on, is just random word-strings and make believe cleverly designed to fake the Turing Test, so it sounds reasonable, but it is not.

But AI told her “Lamplighter” was a pen-name for Jeanette Lynn Clark.

There is no such person.

(My own experience is not as funny. The AI listed my confirmation name as my birth name, saying I was born “John Charles Justinmartyr Wright”.)

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Writers are sometimes asked where our ideas come from. I have it on good authority that Harlan Ellison gets his from Schenectady, New York. Homer, of course, invokes the Muse, and Milton calls on Urania by name in Book VII, but also asks a spirit more sovereign to aid him.

Me? Most of my ideas are based on how to rework ideas of wiser men than I. Newton stood on the shoulders of giants. I club down unwary geniuses in dark alleys and rifle through purses and pokes for their notebooks while dressed like a giant Lemur. All authors have quirks.

Which brings me to the topic:

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A helpful soul on twitter told me my tweets would have more verve if I kept to the character limit, and he used Grok to summarize my (absurdly brief) three paragraph comment. Naturally, the summary missed the point.

Perhaps he is correct, but I am what I am. I was inspired:

Some men pen haiku
Not I. Grandiloquently
Must I orate. Sad!

I think I counted the syllables correctly.

Now that the liberal and egalitarian movements of the Enlightenment are officially dead, it is time to rethink all basic assumptions about political economics. Hence, I here in all due grim sobriety reprint the several daring innovations to our constitutional order I proposed in a prior column from 2011:

I think all Christian conservative mothers should seriously think about taking a hit for the team, and agitating for the repeal of the 19th Amendment.

True, you ladies would be given up a sacred suffrage which is granted to you by God Almighty and which no man rightfully can take away. This is the downside.

On the other hand, your sisters who are feminists and suffragettes would be shut out of the voting booth as well, and they are worshipers and votaries  of Asmodeus and Moloch, who are princes of the Ninth and Eleventh Circle of Hell, commanding six thousand legions of demons.

Meanwhile, ladies, you can bend your attention to the task of raising your boy-children to vote the US Constitution back into effect, and train them in the use and care of firearms, so that we can both outbreed the servants of darkness, outvote them in the ballot box, and then shoot them when they riot.

I realize this is a radical view. But it seems like plain common sense compared to my other view, which is to abolish the American system of government altogether, and beg on our knees for the British Crown to take us back, say we’re sorry about that whole messy Revolution business.

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Raided her home, shot at her man, called her son retarded.
Vendetta is needed.

Meme for Today: