Month: April 2017

I just saw this document in my drafts and forgot to post it before.

Reflecting on Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, two main themes arouse throughout my reading that really resonated with me. First, the immergence of GI technology and the development of the Web to connect the 6000 galaxies in the novel. The Web compiles data on every individual in the galaxy: their personal preferences, personality type, and ideal sexual partners. This GI technology is a somewhat more advanced form of Asimov’s Multivac in “The Last Question” and “All the Troubles in the World.” Multivac compiled data on the citizens based on the questions they asked to the system, yet the Web is more complex and comprises data on individuals without them even giving out their personal information. Marq Dyeth and Rat Korga are ideal sexual partners without even knowing each other, and they were brought together based on the information generated by the Web. The Web emulates our modern day internet and the World Wide Web. Amazon uses our search history to gather information on our hobbies and interests, while Facebook provides information about and images of our friends and families. In addition, Twitter serves as a form of social media to express your everyday thoughts and feelings. Thus, the internet has become remarkably similar to the Web described in Delany’s novel, and we are providing this information via our online presence.

In addition, gender and sexual identity play a huge role in this novel. In some galaxies, there are multiple genders, and when Rat Korga arrives on Velm, he is exposed to a whole new world of sexuality. On Velm, homosexual and heterosexual encounters within one species and between species is accepted, and relationships are not exclusive on Velm. Partners are encouraged to branch out and experience new sexual relations to achieve fulfillment and satisfaction. In 1984, homosexual and transgender individuals were outcasts in contemporary society, and Delaney depicts a world where those ideas were not only accepted but were the norm. As a homosexual author himself, I believe Delany is making a call to push for more acceptance of homosexual individuals to welcome those ideas into society. His novel depicts an advanced society—more advanced than society at the time—where these ideals have arisen, and if science fiction is a prediction of the future, then Delany could be describing a future time period where homosexuality is finally a common occurrence.

In class on Tuesday, we watched an episode of Black mirror. In this episode, people were chipped with a memory device system that recorded everything that happens in your life, and stores it for future watching. The show focused on one couple who encountered problems that came about after the husband was able to rewatch the previous nights events and discover that his wife cheated on him. By the end of the episode, the couple gets divorced and you see the man miserably alone. He ends up cutting out his chip himself because he is haunted by the repeated memories of the events. This episode really got me thinking about how much our memory impacts our actions every day. Every time I am with friends, my reactions with them and how close I am with them is based off of my past experiences. Especially with friendships, sometime sour ability to forget and move on is what people need to heal. I think that if we had the ability to replay everything from our lives, we would be miserable and stuck in remembering the sad, embarrassing, or devastating events in our lives that we normally would be able to move on from. I think it would make our society hostile. This show made me realize that forgetting things or being able to move on is keen to our existence and happiness.

In today’s class, we watched the Black Mirror episode The Entire History of You which explored the cultural and ethical implications that would be linked to the integration of futuristic technologies in an alternate-present. In this episode specifically, the idea of an intra-body artificial memory storage system, called a “Grain” was introduced. The characters displayed the wide cultural integration of this technology as every aspect of life accommodated for the Grain– in the car, displays were provided for the passengers to project their memories onto, multiple Grain-projection screens were located spiritually throughout the house. Every conversation inevitably resulted in some sort of Grain reference to retell a story, confirm a statement, or catch a person in their lie. Although the benefits were clear as the characters had perfect recollection of every event they had every experienced since receiving the Grain, the topic of privacy invasion was dove into. With the ability to project memories, refusal to do so would be a sort of social ostracization or a sure reason for suspicion. Anyone could be pressured into doing it against their will socially, and even legally or violently. This idea of limitless and accessible memory raises the topic of security versus privacy. With the Grain, people are able to rely on their memory as a fact as opposed to just an objective recollection, so it is used a sort of surveillance on yet for the public. In the episode, the airport requested to see the passengers’ memories from the full previous week, and the police requested Grain feeds of an assault to use as evidence. More secure– yes; less privacy– also yes. The technology to actually create a real-life Grain is questionable, but even more questionable is whether it should be done or not in regards to ethics.

The book Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand gave the reader a refreshing new perspective of reading. When I started to read the book I was extremely taken aback by the outlandish world the author took us to. The idea of Cultrual Fugue really started to make me think about what would happen to earth if we had a similiar system. Would people try to change their ways to avoid cultural fugue and the destruction of our planet? The world is going into a downward spiral due to climate change and the inability of our species to try to preserve our beautiful home. As I continued to read this novel I realized I began to  normalize  such a strange world in my head and the many parallels RAT Korga and Marq’s world has with our own. The family shows much of the resistance to interspecies relationship similiarly to how people in the US resist same sex or inter racial marriage. These ethical dilemmas are cross cultural and can be seen in even the strangest and most fantastical books like Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.

Journal

As we really begin to get into the subject of memory, I have begun to think about my Great-Grandmother who died from Alzheimer’s. She was about 80 when she died and my last and only memory of her before her funeral is from when I was about 6 or 7 years old when we visited her in the hospital. Although I do not remember much from the trip, I do remember the sort of blank way that she looked at us, as if not knowing or truly caring who we were. However, I do remember the way in which she clung onto my Great-Grandfather’s arm from her wheelchair. Alzheimer’s is a very curious disease and is one that I would never wish on anyone. Even dementia and being unable to place faces or even your surroundings is something that terrifies me. Although, in part, our ability to forget keeps us sane, I believe also that our ability to remember faces, experiences, and more keeps us sane as well. It is a tricky balance.
I pride myself in having a good memory. I self-proclaim myself as one that “never forgets a face,” when in reality I have found myself recently whether someone in one of my lecture classes has been there all year when they stand up to do a presentation. Diseases like Alzheimer’s and other conditions reminds us that memory is fickle and something that we should not take for granted. In the Buried Giant, Axl continues to use others to place himself and them in the sort of puzzle of his life; there is no real way without their help that Axl could function. This sort of dependence is terrifying in itself and although I am not completely through with the book I wonder whether someone comes to take advantage of this dependence if they are not already.