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Notes -
I started listening to the audiobook of Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress this past week. It wasn't some conscious choice, just a novel I'd heard a lot about and had bought on my Audible account a couple years ago which I happened to notice after I had finished my previous audiobook (Dark Harvest by Will Jordan, who is perhaps more famous by is YouTube persona The Critical Drinker - after listening to it, despite the author being an excellent critic of fiction, I don't think he's a particularly good creator of it), and I was surprised to learn that starting on chapter 1, an AI program that manages logistics on the Moon was a major plot point/character. It plays a practical joke before the events of the book by giving some janitor something like a trillion dollars more on his paycheck than normal, which causes the protagonist to be contracted to fix it, leading to them forming a sort of relationship, which includes discussions about humor and jokes and the AI's ability to understand humor. I found it interesting that the AI was depicted as actually having some competence in understanding humor, not too far from that of a typical human and perhaps even to the level of a socially inept human, in contrast to how I'd normally see AI depicted in 20th century media, lacking emotion for the sake of pure logic. It's not too far off from the kind of humor I've seen ChatGPT4 generate, indicating it still undershot how good an AI would be at this kind of conversation by the time we're using one to manage infrastructure.
The one joke that I heard the AI actually make up is "Why is a laser beam like a goldfish? Because neither one can whistle." When I asked ChatGPT to come up with a punchline for the same joke, it said "Because they both have great aim but a short memory!" which isn't any funnier, but gets a bit more at what a punchline should look like.
There were other parts in the 1st few chapters that reminded me a lot of stuff often discussed on The Motte/SSC. There's also talks of labor movements and violent suppression of such, along with multi-generational polyamorous marriages (the protagonist literally calls one of his wives "mom," and their conversations are far more similar to that of a worrying mother and son than a wife and husband), and an out-and-out rape joke told by a woman sarcastically claiming the protagonist raped her to a third party, which is purely played for laughs. It's often fascinating seeing scifi works from the past after the march of progress has worn away at that "fi" portion, and this one is definitely no exception.
I recall a commenter on the old SSC site doing reviews of all Heinlein's juveniles. His social perspective shines through, even in children's fiction, though it hadn't developed into the hardline anticommunist stance which would color his legacy. All in all, even if I wouldn't want to read them as an adult, I was reasonably impressed.
I do love reading older fiction. When I got to Michael Moorcock's Elric stories, I was amazed 1) at how much had become cliché by merit of influencing later heroic fantasy, 2) what passed for overwhelming angst. They were good reads, unapologetically schlocky, but vivid and stylized.
As a complete aside, I read Friday a while back, which was more in line with Moon or Starship Troopers. It also featured uncomfortable rape-as-humor. Specifically, the protagonist is an android, highly skilled in combat and infiltration, but able to pass in every way as a human female. Captured by enemy soldiers, she is interrogated and then gang-raped. Fortunately, being an android grants immunity to any potential consequences, including psychological trauma. So she intentionally pretends that she is starting to enjoy it, noting that this is the most reliable way to spoil their fun. Yech.
I reread most of the Heinlein juveniles with one of my kids. They weren't all winners, but I think on average they hold up better than most of his adult novels (Moon being a clear exception, along with Stranger in a Strange Land and Job, as well as the IMHO "in-between" Starship Troopers and Double Star). Citizen of the Galaxy would have been worth re-reading even for an adult. Friday, not so much. She wasn't even a mechanical android, was she? ISTR genetically-engineered.
You’re right. I’d forgotten on account of all the times she hides information in her body.
On a different note,
What a mission statement.
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