What I Want

Last week, the now ex-Googler was on my mind. This week kicked off with discussions about what actually qualifies people to become software engineers (hint: ability to code is the lowest barrier to entry); that men have since at least the time of Hippocrates used “science” to justify male superiority; that “race science” is based on equally spurious claims; and that women in Silicon Valley are just starting to find mutual support.

And then there was yesterday in Charlottesville. Which followed on the heels of a kerfluffle in Great Britain regarding a cartoon on the BBC, which was portraying historical accuracy when it included a racially diverse cast for a story set in Roman times. It’s worth raising the spectre of American Exceptionalism, and shooting it down one more time for posterity. There is no nation that hasn’t committed atrocities–now or in the long-distant past–and anyone claiming they’re advocating for a “return to a better time” is misremembering the freight that comes with that past.

I’m frustrated by the world I find myself living in. That I keep getting slapped in the face by news that is offensive to my nature and my aspirations. So this evening I revisited some of my favorite scenes from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Remember the “Measure of a Man” episode? It’s worth going back to YouTube to hear Picard argue about Data’s sentience–and Commander Maddox’s persistent insistence on the science of sentience. In fact, his three criteria–intelligence, self-awareness, consciousness–have a booby trap in them. Intelligence? What kind of intelligence? Does this mean that people of low IQ are not sentient? This is, I suspect, why science deems “mere animals” below the threshold of sentience. I keep seeing articles that compare dogs’ cognitive ability to those of toddlers. Why would scientists do that unless to prove their bias toward keeping a certain barrier to entry to the elite club of sentient beings?

And that loops me back to all the variations in the news of who belongs to which club. Am I linked to the one with the most power? Least power? Most self-righteousness? How about being linked to the one with the ability to keep an open mind and actually debate ideas and solutions? In all the chest-thumping we’re seeing right now, we’re being distracted from dealing with the real problems that are driving the pain and anger and fear pushing people to act in horrifying ways.

Which loops me back to this week’s image. And why I was thinking about Star Trek. I write speculative fiction to put myself into worlds that might be familiar in some respects, but that allow me to explore new ways of seeing underlying tensions. Play with the idea that there could be solutions to the problems we face. So as terrible as the world is, I have the privilege of being able to reflect on it. To try to pull lessons from what I see. I have the imagination to stretch sentience into other beings and explore the philosophical consequences Captain Louvois (from that ST:TNG episode I referenced above) was hesitent to give credence to. What I want? To have the time and emotional energy to spend more time doing that. Our current news cycle is giving me more fodder than I really wanted and is exacting an emotional tax that makes it difficult.

I finally opened my WIP to return to my editing task yesterday. And retreated to read Mercedes Lackey’s Beauty and the Werewolf. I’m doing wonderfully well on my Goodreads reading challenge. Horribly on my writing goals. Walking goals are coming back down to earth; my phone says this week I averaged 4,949 steps per day. And hubs and I were distracted by visitors, errands, and obligations so skipped what I would consider a date night–even though we made dinner together most nights, and were walking together for many of those steps.

I hope that delaying my editing process is a stroke of wonderful luck, though the thread of frustration that connects that delay to everything I’ve written about should indicate how I really feel about it. This week will require a trip to Maryland and next week hubs has a trip out of state, so I don’t anticipate any kind of normalcy returning any time soon. Nonetheless, I will persist. As will my ROW80 cohorts.