Questions I never answered when I was doing the interview meme, from demiurgically_m:
1. Everyone turns to someone(s) for help. Who (or what) do you turn to?
I turn to daisynerd because she’s incredibly smart and straightforward and I know I can absolutely, 100% trust her to tell me the truth about whatever’s going on. I turn to sleazemonkey because he’s wise and here in Melbourne, so I can get hugs when I need them, I turn to thorfinn about specific things, because he has experience in those things and has a very logical mind and I think his moral code maps almost directly to mine and more recently, I’ve been turning to e_dan because he is lovely and sweet, he’s outside the circle and can see things with a fresh mind and even better, he’s two hours behind, so if I’m distressed at 2 in the morning, it’s still a reasonable hour where he is. *grin*
2. You pride yourself on being an individual. However, I’m sure sometimes you have been Sheeple. When did you last accept something without thought?
Interesting question. I’m sure I do it all the time. Ironically, I’m troubled by the word ‘accept’ here. Does it mean ‘accept something I was given”? Or does it mean “accept something as valid”?
I’ll assume the latter. I trust just about everything marius_cale tells me about astrophysics without question, because he knows waaaay more about it than I ever will, but that’s not without *thought* because I try hard to comprehend what he’s telling me. Hmmm. “Without thought”. Presumably something significant, as opposed to “that’s the right change from $5”. Maybe the couple of recent discussions about money with publishers where I’ve just accepted that what’s being discussed is going to happen?
3. This site talks about the future and our ideas about it ”The future wasn’t tomorrow, next week, next year, or next century. It was a place with a form, a structure, a style. True, we didn’t know exactly what the future would be like, but we knew that it had to be one of a few alternatives; some good, some very bad. The future was a world with a distinct architecture. It had its own way of speaking. It had its own technology. ” We’ve been let down by personal jet packs, blasters and the Space Age. Where do we go next?
Ah yes. This is why I always loved Gibson’s short story “The Gernsback Continuüm”, where the imagined future of the 1950s that never happened breaks through to this plane and 6‑lane highways keep unfolding into 18-lane freeways filled with finned silver cars.
Where next? Why, to a world where our children will be let down by stem cell research, bio-engineering and embedded technology of course. And one in which the technology that does exist looks nothing much like we’ve imagined at all but is still mind-blowing and society-changing in its own special ways. “The street finds its own uses for things.”
4. As an anarchist, how would you justify the use of propaganda?
Not sure what the two things have to do with each other. It implies that without organised rulers, we can’t use persuasion. Propaganda is one form of suasion, and logical argument is another. Advertising is a form of suasion. And if you’re talking about organised forms of propaganda as frequently used by governments, why would I as an anarchist want to justify that? I see state propaganda as one of the manipulative tools states use to achieve their aims. When I was in Latvia, I was at a café and I overheard someone say that when there was an industrial accident in the old days, they’d listen to Soviet radio which would say 2 people had been injured and they’d listen to the American propaganda radio, Radio Free Europe, which would say that 200 people had been injured and they’d know the truth was that 20 people were injured.
5. Why do these questions appear in this format?
Um… lemon fish gelato?
Oh yeah, that’s right, I’m supposed to do some for you now:
1. What does it mean to you to be living in Canberra again?
2. Your partner once argued fairly convincingly to me that he was politically and economically a fascist. What does that mean to you?
3. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned from your kids?
4. Explain how renovating and writing are similar.
5. (you don’t have to answer this one publicly, but I am intrigued) Given that I’m your son’s oddmother (not that I’ve been a very good one lately, but that’s another discussion), would you ever tell him about the relationships between you, me, hawk_eye and that whole crazy crowd? What would you say?