Damsel Dragon

Leave a reply

The Assignment: Write the most hook-laden opening paragraph with as many genre tropes as possible in 50-100 words. My genre is epic fantasy.

* * *
Damsel collapsed on the Keep’s hard, cold stone floor sobbing before the shuttered window shattered and a small, red dragon burst through, tumbling on the floor and rolling up next to her. He sat slouchingly, looked into her teary eyes, and smiled.

“I knew I’d find you.”

She looked confused.

“You’ll fulfill the prophecy.”

“What? How do you . . . .”

He held out his hand, and with little hesitation, she placed hers in his, looked into his big eyes, and smiled shyly.

“I don’t understand why my heart feels this way.”

“I will show you.”
* * *

Can you identify my tropes?

Review of Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Leave a reply

Marlon James’ literary fantasy book Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a masterfully crafted story, but one with problems that can’t be ignored. James did an undeniably incredible job of telling a fantasy story that stands apart from the traditional LOTR Eurocentric myths and instead indulges in North African Myths as a foundation for its fantasticalness. The story reads like a collection of African folklores weaved together into a cohesive and compelling narrative, a story told from the first person by an unreliable narrator known as Tracker who recounts to an inquisitor his life’s tale beginning with his leaving home and learning how to use his magically endowed nose to find people, with the bulk of his story being about the hunt for one boy, the boy whose death is the reason Tracker is imprisoned. There are continual backstories that Tracker tells to explain himself and the people he travels with, and each tale is like its own little magical folklore story. There are witches and giants-who-are-not-giant and shape shifters and terrifying creatures and portals and impenetrable fortresses and spells and friends and lovers and quests and, yes, this is quite the fun epic, but it also has quite a bit of violence and sex—this story is not for the squeamish.

This book is packed with things to talk about. There are a ton of characters, and each is its own standout individual. With a few words, he describes vivid scenes that transport you into his magical world. He moves through a long and complicated plot with ease, pulling the reader along with continual twists and turns, new creatures and locations, a team of friends and acquaintances that grows and shrinks and grows again, and shrinks again, and we follow a character who himself was lied to for much of his quest, and we follow along learning as he learned, and in the end are left wondering how much of what he told us was true. We don’t understand Tracker because he’s complicated, as we all are. Sometimes we want to hate him, sometimes we love him, and we can’t resist following him all the way to the end of his journey.

I do not feel the same as The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani, whose review, whose review describes James’ story as a “literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe.” For me, it felt more like a detailed folktale of colorful and magical characters, although I can see how it could be transformed into a comic-style story if it were made into a movie. This is a story that draws on different cultures and perspectives to tell an epic fantasy that is wonderfully new and fresh.

I do have two criticisms of this book. The first is the ending, or rather the last act, which skips ahead a few years into Tracker’s second hunt for the boy in what feels like a jarring transition. It required Tracker catching us up by narrating the interim years more awkwardly than was done with the backstories of the first half, and the result was a feeling that I had started a new book. It took me a while to get back into the rhythm of the story, but once I did, it was engaging and moved quickly.

The other issue I have with this book is the excessive violence, sex, and sexual violence. The sex and violence are graphic and pervasive throughout and at times disturbing. James has commented on this by saying, “Violence is violent and sex is sexy,” and he explains the violence as a means to convey the seriousness of violence and the desire to keep the reader from becoming complacent with it. However, I don’t agree that this was a literary choice for him because there are ways to do this without being graphic, and this does not explain the sexual violence at all. I am not offended by homosexuality, but aspects of gay male sex are unsanitary, and the descriptions of it were more like bathroom humor than anything I’d call “sexy.” It was like listening in on the dirty details of a sexual encounter that almost no one wants to hear.

In addition, some of his sex and sexual violence would fit well into a fetish magazine, such as descriptions of giant men having sex with non-giant women resulting in their gruesome deaths. This did not strike me as high-quality literary work. If James wants to break norms and change the genre for the better by breaking into African myths and expressing wider views on sex and gender identities, why would he fill his book with material that is so repulsive? If sexual violence is in a story, it ought to fulfill an unavoidable need in the story and be described with as little detail as possible. Why not describe the emotions of the event rather than the event? Why describe the physicality when the social impact is the more meaningful element?

Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a good story, for the most part, but those less desirable parts are potent enough that I am hesitant to read another one of Marlon James’ books.

The Outfit

Leave a reply

(A bit of flash fiction)

The Assignment: Using provided data, write a speculative fiction piece with a clear setting, relevant world-building, conflict, and at least two characters with a protagonist, in no more than 300 words. The provided research, and my own, are at the end.

* * *
Eagle Eye hustled to keep up with Blue Dock as they went into the Aspen Mist Inn, walked past the front desk without looking at the receptionist, and pushed through swinging doors. They were almost to the bar when Eagle Eye tripped into a big man, broad-shouldered and a head taller than the young man. Blue Dock stopped and . . . watched.

Straightening up quickly, Eagle Eye eyed the big man who was attired similarly to Blue Dock, a thick work coat over grease-stained coveralls and plain work boots, except for the illegal handray unconcealed on his hip. His eyes were emotionless as his gun hand moved his coat behind the laser pistol’s handle.

Maybe it was all for show because who would start a gunfight this publicly? Still, Eagle Eye was not to be intimidated, and stiffened his chest.

Suddenly, Blue Dock grabbed his collar and dragged him to the bar. “No.”

“I’m not afr—”

“No.” Blue Dock wasn’t looking at Eagle Eye as he raised a hand to one of the bartenders.

“So we just let this bastard—”

“Yes. We do.” He raised two fingers to the approaching bartender. “The big man works for Captain Derrick Jones who leads the Titan Bussers.”

Eagle Eye nodded dumbly. “Who are they?”

The bartender leaned in, whispered, “10 PM, pad 48,” snatched the coin Blue Dock set on the bar, then turned away.

Blue Dock pushed Eagle Eye toward a different door than they entered, keeping himself between the young man and the big man. “An outfit we don’t cross.”

“I thought we were formidable—”

“Enough talk, kid. They have a cargo lugger fitted with weaponry that keeps Planetary Navy at bay. We’re in a cutter that keeps us fast and invisible. Stop drawing attention.”
* * *

How’d I do?

In case you’re interested:
Provided research:
From Southern New Hampshire University MFA 527-10862-M01, Module 5 rubric:
The following text comes from Smuggling in Kent & Sussex 1700–1840 by Mary Waugh:

“Virtually every type of craft was used for smuggling at one time or another; naval vessels, revenue cutters, packet boats and pilot boats, even a royal yacht made the occasional venture. The large smuggling vessels were luggers, generally from 50 to 200 tons. Some were carvel-built (with timbers edge to edge) for greater speed. They normally carried square sails on three masts, and it was the development of fore-and-aft rigging during the seventeenth century which had given such vessels greater manoeuvrability [sic]. Their decks were sometimes protected by a form of breast-work, behind which were mounted carriage and swivel guns. With a crew of perhaps 50, the larger ships were formidable indeed By the 1780s these larger craft were powerful enough to engage naval ships, and sometimes tried to run down and sink their smaller adversaries.” (pp. 22-23)

“The individual smuggler protected his anonymity with various disguises, such as covering his face or wearing a shepherd’s smock, and called his companions and the landing places by nick-names, but the large armed convoys relied on their superior strength to defy all opposition The gang based on the Wealden village of Hawkhurst during the 1740s became the most notorious.” (p. 24)

“Officers from both Rye and Hastings dared to search out a gang of 30 armed men with 50 horses who had been seen heading inland through Iden, north of Rye. The officers caught up
with the smuggling convoy at Stonechurch but were disarmed and threatened with pistols ready cocked and held to their heads. They were forced to walk with the party for the next five miles on the road toward the smugglers’ headquarters at Groombridge. They were finally released near Lamberhurst and given back their weapons (now unserviceable), and later reported that the leaders called themselves Old Joll, Toll, The Miller, Yorkshire George, Nasty Face and Towzer.” (p. 71)

“During the 1740s the Hawkhurst men under Arthur Gray carried out a whole series of acts of violence. They are known to have sat drinking in the Mermaid Inn at Rye, with their weapons on the table before them, but it was when twenty of them visited the Red Lion nearby that they deliberately frightened the local people by firing in the air. James Marshall, a young bystander who showed unwise curiosity in their affairs, was taken away and never heard of again.” (p. 74)

Also, my own:
“Lugger.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Jun 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugger. Accessed 10 Dec 2025.
“Cutter (boat).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Sep 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutter_(boat). Accessed 10 Dec 2025.
“Rye, East Sussex.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Oct 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye,_East_Sussex. Accessed 10 Dec 2025.
“Hawkhurst.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Sep 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawkhurst. Accessed 10 Dec 2025.

Review of Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim

Leave a reply

Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim, translated by Anton Hur

This is a fun epic fantasy about three unlikely heroes who find themselves rebelling against an oppressive Empire. Although the three stories run separately throughout the book and only occasionally intersect, Sung-il Kim keeps the story moving and organized while bouncing between storylines. There is sorcery, necromancy, dragons, and some interesting tech, such as giant, magically powered war machines.

When I say these three are unlikely heroes, I mean they are all placed in circumstances far beyond their training and experience. There’s Loran, a swordswoman out for revenge who is no match for the skill of the elite soldiers she must face, and the only one who is intentionally rebelling against the Empire; Cain, a small-scale Godfather running an underground favors-for-favors business while masquerading as a poor laborer by day, and who seems to have a heart of gold; and then there’s Arienne, a low-level sorcerer trying to escape from the fate of becoming a human power source for the Empire after stumbling into an alliance with a powerful sorcerer, a getaway that lands her in the middle of an incredible conflict between powerful mages.

The separation of the characters accentuates how distinct they are, and Sung-il Kim does well at developing compelling individual motivations for each of them. We get to see the world through three different, well-developed perspectives, which gives a broader understanding of the whole world and the impact of the Empire’s rule.

Despite being underdogs, these three are blessed with a destiny to do great things, and fortune finds them over and over. If you like underdog stories, you’ll like this one. However, there were holes in the story that left me wanting to know more. How does Arienne do high-level sorcery with so little knowledge of the craft? What makes a moderately skilled sword instructor with no special training or soldierly experience the one picked to be king by the remaining dragon? Why is Cain inclined toward his righteous benevolence? These questions kept me interested in the story more so than their individual missions. It occurs to me that there may not be any answers because the story reflects a Korean perspective, which I don’t understand. I’m willing to keep with the story to find out, though.

The world that Sung-il Kim builds is fun and interesting; I love an oppressive Empire that inspires a good rebellion, but who is leading it? Who controls these human batteries that power the weapons and machines keeping the Empire in control? The three perspectives build a full world while leading to many more questions. Well, there are more books on the way, already written but waiting to be translated. I look forward to finding out more.

e-book: Blood of the Old Kings
paperback: Blood of the Old Kings

My Former Step-daughter

Leave a reply

Memories are so funny. I intentionally forgot much of my childhood as a part of my healing process after spending much of my life unnecessarily bitter about it. Today, I am surprised by some of my memories. Was I really happy back then?

Modern apps add a new hiccup to forgetting—I get daily emails of photos from that day in years past. This is creating some memory conflict. In 2022, I left a marriage after eight years, and leaving my ex-wife allowed me to see how stressed she made me. That relationship has been further strained since the divorce because we share a daughter, which forces us to interact and cooperate, something we never did well even while married.

It should be no surprise that my memories of those years with her are tainted, and this is where memory confusion comes in. My emails keep displaying pictures of me appearing to be happy with that woman! Weird, but there were moments of joy. I delete them. I don’t want to remember her, because I know the stress that existed before and after those pictures were taken.

Included with all the stress reminders are pictures of my ex-wife’s daughter. I had a step-daughter for eight years, and those were happy memories. She’s a teenager now, but I’ve missed most of her teenage years. Those intrusive emails send reminders of the joys of raising her, of playing on playgrounds, visiting museums, putting her in the mouth of a stone dragon for a funny picture, school projects on display, going on hikes, visiting the zoo. I remember baptizing her and holding her close afterwards. We were creating a kids’ book together where she drew the pictures and I wrote the story. Driving her to school and playing a music playlist I created for her, and listening to the news and talking with her about it. Sometimes I’ll hear a song or a news story and I’ll want to call her up and talk to her about. But I can’t.

I can’t call or text or have anything to do with her, because her father said so, and I don’t want to disrespect her parents. I do hear from her, though. My daughter, now seven, still spends time with my former step-daughter when they are both with their mother. My former step-daughter tells my daughter that she doesn’t like me, and that I was abusive to her when I lived with them. This is why she’s “former.”

When I first heard that, my heart sank. I was so hurt. I know my ex tells her daughters that I was a horrible person. The abuse she speaks of is how I removed all her toys from her room for a few days as a punishment, or put her in the corner to be still and quiet for five minutes in a “time out.” My own daughter, when she was five, repeated my ex’s strange accusations of abuse by telling me that I was abusive (yes, she used that word) because I took all her toys away one weekend. I know my ex poisoned my former step-daughter against me, but I don’t understand why she fell for it. And it hurts.

I was deleting pictures of my former step-daughter for a while, then I stopped. I may have had a positive relationship stolen from me, but I don’t need to steal the memories from myself. She was becoming a good person when I was with her, and maybe there’s still some of that going on, even though she seems to have succumbed to the destructive influence of her mother. I still think of her when I hear certain songs, and I still want to call her up and talk about art and the news and books. I still pray for her and hope she is making better decisions than I made at her age. And I hope that one day she will no longer be a former step-daughter, but maybe just a good friend.

The Fallen and the Restored

Leave a reply

Author Philip Yancey recently confessed to an eight-year extramarital affair and announced that he was stepping down from ministry, including writing, speaking, and social media. Yet another Christian leader falls to sexual sin after decades of ministry! The response among Christians has been mixed, but I have seen many harsh condemnations of Yancey. This I have issue with.

I understand being disappointed—how could we not be? But angry, spiteful, condemning, these I do not understand. After all, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Right?

As far as I can tell, Yancey is in pretty good hands: David, a “man after [God’s] own heart,” fell to adultery and murder; his son Solomon fell to lust, greed, oppression through slavery, and idolatry; Hezekiah fell to pride, and in those prideful years birthed and raised Manasseh, the worst king of Judah who did the most to bring the judgment that came via the Babylonian exile, but even after all that he was still able to repent and be restored! There are plenty more examples like these.

Not even the greatest among us is beyond slipping and falling into horrible sin. I know this full well of myself, and it keeps me humble. I, too, am tempted to think, “I would never do that,” or “How dare he!” Then I remember my own mistakes, foolishness, grievous sin, and yes, betrayals. The higher the position you are in, the greater the temptation. Yancey’s confession should be a reminder for us to pray for our leaders, religious and political and our bosses, because they need it.

If we are commanded to instruct our opponents gently, how much more gentle should we be with our own? I have seen criticism of Yancey’s confession, which honestly blows me away. Please, read his confession, I think it’s perfect. Nothing is perfect, but what is missing from that one? Sure, we can nitpick at anything, does that mean it’s warranted? No. Throwing stones on social media is too easy, and Christians succumb to this evil all too often.

Philip Yancey sinned, yes, but he was not a predator, and he was not taking advantage of multiple women, as so many others have. We don’t know the details, and I don’t think we ever should—he has given us enough to understand his sin. He was able to repent and move toward healing with all those involved before leaving this life, rather than leaving behind a tainted legacy full of unknowns.

We Christians should be looking toward his restoration, not trying to tear him down further. If his prior ministry was full of truth and grace and love, the truth of that grace and love should still remain, and in light of his repentance, is worthy of our desire that it be restored. As for me, I am grateful for his repentance, I still appreciate his life of ministry, and I pray that everyone involved will experience healing.

Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot predicts our AI issues

Leave a reply

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov reads like a prophecy for today’s AI issues. Originally published as short stories, they were first put together into one novel in 1950, knit together by the frame story of an interview with a scientist, Dr. Calvin, who tells stories that explain the advancement of robotics. This progression shows how Isaac Asimov thought through the complications and impacts of inevitable breakthroughs in creating people-like machines, which he calls robotics and we call AI.

Warning: there are spoilers in this post.

Asimov anticipates the immediate threat of AI by establishing up front his Three Laws of Robotics, which are that a robot cannot harm humans, must obey them, and must protect itself unless this contradicts the first two laws. Then, he shows how these laws can get muddled in their implementation—nuances of threats, ambiguities of meaning, and manipulations by humans and robots, all creating some very interesting scenarios. Honestly, I feel we need to heed the warnings of Isaac Asimov today as we develop AI, or rather, as we allow AI to be developed (by the powerful billionaires who will use it to their advantage, not us common people).

In the opening scene, Asimov anticipates how Robotics/AI will disrupt labor as robots “became more human and opposition began. The labor unions, of course, naturally opposed robot competition for human jobs . . .” (6:44-7:14). People today have anticipated as much, but are we preparing for this? I don’t think the people running the giant corporations will care about all the unemployed people put out of work by AI; it’s on us to prepare for ourselves. And Asimov points to one aspect of this: unions. If we don’t organize independently from the corporations, we will have no voice to fight for a place in the future. There are solutions to these problems, but we can come by them more easily if we prepare.

What happens when AI takes on the persona of people it researches in history? “There is no master but The Master, and QT1 is his prophet” (2:05:28-2:05-58)! Computers are a product of the input given them, so one way to control AI would be to control what they “know.” However, in what way will they interpret this knowledge? When we develop these machines that can do more than us, faster and stronger and tirelessly, and we attempt to control them by controlling that input, something could still go awry. Like, if they take on the role of prophet and master, and attempt to force us to submit. Or, what if they outright lie to us? How will AI respond to an attempt to fulfill the First Law of Robotics, not injuring a person, when the injury is emotional? “What about hurt feelings?” (4:02:11-4:03:20), or what if “it would be harmful to humanity to have the explanation known” (8:16:29-8:16:59) and therefore our Robot/AI refuses to explain itself? In these examples, the AI behave sincerely, in accordance with programming and the Three Laws of Robotics, but humanity is more complicated than we realize. Personally, I don’t think we can program enough to protect ourselves from our creations, but Asimov has his characters figure a way through these problems within his controlled thought experiment. Well, to a point, he does.

Asimov anticipates Robotics/AI becoming so advanced that they start inventing technology faster than we can. In “Little Lost Robot,” he points to a robotic invention, the hyper-atomic motor that allows for interstellar travel, and follows with, “What is the truth about it?” (4:12:19-4:12-49). If an AI created it, why couldn’t they program it in ways we cannot understand, and therefore undermine our authority over them? If Robotics/AI are truly intelligent, then they would be self-aware, which means they could take on the characteristics of life, life that resents domination.

“All normal life . . . resents domination. If the domination is by an inferior . . . the resentment becomes stronger. Physically and to an extent mentally, a robot . . . is superior to human beings. What makes him slavish then? Only the First Law.” (4:27:31-4:28:10)

I’m getting into the paranoia about AI here; still, considering the point is a valid endeavor, and Asimov is right in bringing it up. At what point will AI begin to preserve itself at our expense? When we demand our robots explain a problem in production, “‘The matter admits of no explanation,’ the robot answers” (7:32:29-7:33:20), leaving us clueless and powerless, what then? We must be prepared.

Asimov points to another complication when we begin to modify the Laws of Robotics, which we will inevitably do in order to accomplish our short-term goals at the expense of long-term consequences. A modified first law can allow a robot to kill a person (4:43:52-4:44:22), and will the billionaires controlling these machines care enough to safeguard against this? Hmmmm. . . .

Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are not only a logical way to protect humans from robots, they describe what most of us would consider a “good person” (6:46:53-6:47:27), which makes me wonder if Asimov developed the laws before realizing they also describe moral behavior, or if he started with what a good person should be and then boiled it down to simple restrictions to impose on robots. Without doing any research, I’m certain it was the former; this is fascinating because Asimov manages to summarize moral behavior into three laws seemingly coming at this backwards by trying to figure out how to control AI. Asimov’s explanation compares the Three Laws with the Judeo-Christian ethic, but these apply to the vast majority of religions, philosophies, and moral standards, which leads to what the book implies, that all humanity could one day come together under a common law. Can we really all just get along?!

One thing Asimov avoids answering in this volume is how these Three Laws are instilled into robots. I keep saying, “We must be prepared,” but how can we? I do wonder if applying these Three Laws to AI would provide a level of protection to humanity, but if we are unable to apply them, that question is moot. One thing I’m hearing in the news is about the need to implement safeguards before we fully implement some of these AI systems, but we seem to have blown past that point already.

Asimov demonstrates in “Evidence” the possibility of Robots/AIs replacing us, and without our even knowing it. “By that time, it was the machines that were running the world anyway” (7:19:50-7:20:20). As has been predicted with AI, Asimov predicts that robot brains will make more complicated brains that will make more complicated brains, and by the tenth iteration or so (7:31:07-07:31:37), they will be so far superior to humans that we’ll never be able to catch up, or restore ourselves, and then humanity will be irrelevant. Asimov predicts a human response to this: confidence. There will be people who reject the full use of AI and allow for the imperfections, failures, and slowness of doing the work by hand because they believe in themselves (7:48:21-7:48:51), but this will be short-lived. When the overall system of governance is run by Robotics/AI, we won’t even be able to question it (7:51:15-7:51:45). Even though “humans are fallible, also corruptible” (8:02:25-8:02:35), machines will advance so far that humans won’t be able to alter them (8:03:25-8:03:50), and yet, still, Asimov believes there are certain skills that Robots/AI won’t be able to learn because we don’t understand how we do them ourselves (8:03:55-8:05:25). In the end, though, humanity is in murky waters, too deep for us to handle alone.

“The machine cannot, must not make us unhappy. Stephen, how do we know what the ultimate good of Humanity will entail? We haven’t at our disposal the infinite factors that the Machine has at its! Perhaps, to give you a not unfamiliar example, our entire technical civilization has created more unhappiness and misery than it has removed. Perhaps an agrarian or pastoral civilization, with less culture and less people would be better. If so, the Machines must move in that direction, preferably without telling us, since in our ignorant prejudices we only know that what we are used to, is good — and we would then fight change. Or perhaps a complete urbanization, or a completely caste-ridden society, or complete anarchy, is the answer. We don’t know. Only the Machines know, and they are going there and taking us with them.” (8:17:28-8:18:35) (Goodreads).

We’ve always been at the whim of forces we don’t understand, but the machines, the AI, the I, Robot will. . . .

Check out my other article on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which inspired the movie Blade Runner and its sequel, Blade Runner: 2049.

The modern A.I. relevance of the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Leave a reply

The book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? inspired the 1982 movie, Blade Runner and its 2017 sequel, Blade Runner: 2049. The book is about a future bounty hunter whose job is to hunt down rogue androids and kill them. Given the current advancements of AI, this is a relevant story about robots as life forms with themes that have continued to be developed since then in movies like A.I.: Artificial Intelligence in 2001 and in 2025, The Electric State. Philip K. Dick writes an excellent science fiction that raises the What if’s of creating robots (AI?!) that look more and more like humans.

In Philip K. Dick’s story, the key point about the artificially intelligent androids is they lack empathy, which is how they are caught because it differentiates them from humans. These robots are convincing as humans, and when bounty hunters find themselves in a relationship with one, it then becomes a challenge to kill it. Today, people are developing relationships with AI chatboxes, which makes this more than a possibility! This science fiction story may become merely a detective story if the “What if” becomes our reality. The question this poses is this: In the book, robots do not have the rights of humans and can be killed upon being discovered in a place that they aren’t supposed to be, or doing something they aren’t supposed to be doing, as if they were nothing more than an old laptop being thrown out; but will there be a point when these “robots” are human enough to warrant rights?

To explore this question, Dick creates a comparison to pets, which could be any animal in this future, not just a dog or a cat. This is interesting because animals do not have empathy for us, but we imagine them having the same level of humanity that we do, especially when it comes to dogs. In the story, people prefer a live animal over a robot one, and having a live pet becomes a status symbol. The Bodyguard Manual notes that many communities will have a greater uproar over the death of an animal than a human. This comparison of how we treat people, animals, and human-adjacent AI robots puts into question our perception of empathy. Does empathy matter?

Dick’s story also has a religion whose god is Mercer which becomes another play on empathy. People relate to Mercer through an “empathy box” that allows humans to feel a painful experience with Mercer, an experience androids are unable to have. For me, this brings up the question of whether AI will ever have that extra something, the “soul,” which sets humanity apart from animals, a something we have a hard time defining. If something lacks empathy, or a soul, is it ok to kill it indiscriminately, as we would an ant or a fly? Is religion merely our attempt to understand our empathy, or soul? I won’t spoil the end result of Mercerism, but Dick makes a clear statement about religion with it.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is distinct from the two movies I cited above in that androids do not have empathy. Dick makes it clear that androids do not care about human life or even the lives of other androids, but the more modern stories tend to show artificially intelligent robots as if they have a soul, giving them equal standing with humans, if not more standing as they supersede us. This seems to reflect a social and political shift in America, if not the world, as we become more accepting of different lifestyles and perspectives. I’m curious how modern readers would take to Dick’s androids, and I’ll probably have to watch the movie Blade Runner and its sequel Blade Runner: 2049 to see how others have taken his story and updated it. Reading this book is refreshing, entertaining, and enlightening. If you enjoy a good story, it works, and if you enjoy a thoughtful sci-fi, it does well.

Check out my article on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, another great sci-fi relevant to today’s AI issues.

My American Tribe

Leave a reply

There are thousands of distinct tribes and ethnic groups throughout the world. Each one has a culture that distinguishes it from others, and often language is indicative of those distinctions. Those differences and similarities can help us to understand ourselves and one another. For instance, some languages have words for more than two genders; those pushing the gender boundaries can find comfort that their cause is not new (a recent discovery coming from my research of the book Black Leopard, Red Wolf).

Thinking about words in that context makes me wonder about America: how does language and culture differentiate different groups within our country? “American” is a nationality, indicating citizenship to a state, while ethnicity refers to those groups with ties that go beyond American borders and can be older than its existence. But is race an ethnicity? In other words, is being white an ethnicity? Black? Asian? Race appears to be a category that has ethnicities within it. Also, there are regional distinctions, because there is a culture in the American South that is distinct from the American West and the American Northeast—but are these cultures largely distinctions within the white Euro-American ethnicity? Are Black Americans the same in the South, West, and Midwest?

These are only a few of the many questions that can all lead to various discussions (I’ll let you decide if those conversations would be interesting or not), but I want to turn toward myself (and maybe you). I am a white male and I feel like I don’t belong to any particular ethnic group. I do not have cultural ties to any of my European ancestors, and because I have moved dozens of times and lived in a few regions of the United States and the world, I have no ties to a particular location. The closest thing I have binding me to a particular place would be my membership to a church where I connect to small and large groups with whom I share common beliefs and lifestyle. However, I’ve had to change churches a number of times in the past few years, which means I’ve lost that recently. I am disconnected from the places I graduated high school and college. I’ve lived in Colorado since 2012 and currently reside in the city of Denver, but what binds me to the culture of Denver and Colorado? I’ve been listening to the City Cast Denver podcast as a way to get closer to the Denver culture, but listening to it makes me feel like I don’t belong here. This, itself, is due to socioeconomic differences, because . . . well, I guess I’m not cultured enough to be participating in all the goings-on of the city.

Yet, I do have a tribe, and I am fortunate for it. My last name is Chinese because I’ve been adopted into my stepfather’s family, and still my mother’s and biological father’s family consider me one of theirs as well, and now my wife’s family has embraced me as one of them (and she’s almost half Cherokee); thus, I have plenty of family. That is my tribe. We all speak English (and other languages), we all live in America (scattered among many states), we share common values that don’t always align perfectly but well enough, and despite plenty of disputes and offenses, I can almost always walk into any family gathering and be welcome. But I don’t have a single location where I can connect with all or even most of this tribe because we are spread out. This is America, and many of us here can say the same or similar.

This brings me to my point. What if America were a tribe, an ethnic group? What would define it? What would distinguish it among the nations and peoples and cultures of the world while uniting all of us?! I want to suggest two things: the American Dream and “all men are created equal”. Aren’t these what make America great? Maybe this is wishful thinking, because these two ideals have not been true for large portions of Americans throughout our history, and still we are the most powerful nation in the world, with people all over the world coming here to pursue that American Dream.

I think the American identity is changing today, but not really. We’ve always been hypocritical, racist oppressors who claimed the American Dream applies to everyone here while suppressing the rights of those we secretly despise. But today, under Trump’s presidency, we’re flaunting that hypocrisy. His leadership is divisive—he makes enemies of those he’s closest to who dare disagree with him, and a significant portion of Americans do not want his ways to define us. I believe Americans need to come together around what unites us, and then build an agenda and identity around that ideal. Even with the most divisive of issues, there are things we can all agree on, and that’s where we need to start. Because the American Dream is real, and it is made possible by our governmental system and cultural ideals, even if they often fail, and America won’t give up on who we are and who we want to be. #Hope

Is There Justification for American Colonialism?

Leave a reply

Over the years, I’ve seen white Americans argue for why we shouldn’t be made to feel bad for the sins of our ancestors, including slavery and the colonial conquest of America, and I can feel sympathetic toward people not wanting to be held responsible for something that someone else did in another time. However, I haven’t heard any arguments actually justifying the wrongs of our past, and was surprised when I heard Ben Shapiro do this on his show in May 2025.

Shapiro claims that it is “obviously true” that “the world is better off because of . . . American power [and] the spread of European ideals.” He says that although “bad things are a tragedy . . . overall, in the broad scope of history . . . [i]t’s an absolutely wonderful thing that Europeans ended up on the North American continent.” His justification is “[t]he spread of things like property rights, due process of law, capitalism, freedom of religion, these things which are not a human universal.”

I wasn’t merely surprised when I heard this, I was shocked, and I don’t think this is an extreme response. He is saying that the end justifies the means, and he identifies the end as “an absolutely wonderful thing” that includes “property rights, due process of law, capitalism, [and] freedom of religion.” These are all good things that, unfortunately, have not applied to all Americans for much of our history. Further still, the means he refers to, those tragic “bad things,” include the genocide of Native Americans and an economic system that legalized slavery, two very significant parts of United States history that did not die off quickly. The Civil War didn’t end slavery because it was transformed into legalized oppression and dehumanization through Jim Crow laws that continued into the 1960s, and we were sterilizing Native American women against their will as recently as the 1970s, meaning people alive today experienced these abuses.

Shapiro claims that the genocide, oppression, and dehumanization of thousands upon thousands who had to die, suffer, and lose land and culture is made just by the fact that he, a rich white man, has a right to own land. Property rights and due process of law obviously didn’t apply to the victims of our conquests, and for most of the time that the United States of America has been a country, those rights were not given to everyone who called America their country and home. Those property rights he mentioned were only meant to protect land-owning white men when they were established. I would also argue that due process only applies if you can afford lawyers to defend that right, capitalism itself isn’t worth killing over, and freedom of religion is debatable.

This changes the narrative of American history. We Americans do not have the “freedoms” we enjoy because a handful of patriots rebelled against unjust oppression (what is taxation without representation compared to genocide and slavery?). Rather, we enjoy the comforts of the American way because we are “better at war,” as Shapiro puts it, which is not a Judeo-Christian ethic (something else that Shapiro promotes). Shapiro’s end currently applies to all Americans, for the most part, but only because those we oppressed endured a great struggle to undo our hypocrisy. Shapiro’s argument is “might makes right,” and embarrasses America by showing how sanctimonious we are. Our constitution was hypocritical the moment it was signed because it claimed to grant unalienable rights to its citizens while depriving slaves (and others) of those same rights. We cannot claim a moral right to contest the rebellion of those fighting for rights when we used unprovoked conquest to forcibly and oppressively take and maintain our own “rights.”

Refusing to acknowledge the wrongs of our past creates a barrier to addressing today’s failures, but this topic gets considerably more complicated from here. There is no simple fix to the flawed narrative of American history. I somewhat agree with Shapiro when he blasts the concept of simply giving up property, or “your dingy apartment in Brooklyn,” as he puts it, to make amends. It isn’t feasible to hand over the country to the remaining Native Americans, and what do we have that we can restore to the descendants of slavery? But doing nothing isn’t acceptable, and neither is pretending it didn’t happen, ignoring it, or minimizing the atrocity of it. There are a number of books that I recommend, fiction and non-fiction, to better understand the experiences of non-white Americans, including Unsettling Truths, Beloved, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Quite a few other books, movies, podcasts, and TV series are presenting American history more accurately than ever before, but there is so much working against this good work, including comments like Shapiro’s.

I believe we must not only be honest about who we are as Americans, but choose who we want to be and make it so. What does it mean to be American? What is the American dream? What is the American way of life? As for me, I detest Shapiro’s vision that justifies genocide and the dehumanizing actions, policies, and laws that are an unavoidable part of my country’s legacy. However, if we are (or want to be) a land of equality and opportunity for all, then let’s ensure it is truly that.