Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener Mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And today is Monday,
Speaker 3: the day of each week that we read back messages
Speaker 3: from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch and maybe have
Speaker 3: your own message featured on a listener mail episode, you
Speaker 3: can reach us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com. All types of messages are welcome. We
Speaker 3: especially like if you have something interesting to add to
Speaker 3: a topic we have recently talked about. Let's see, rob
Speaker 3: should we kick things off with some responses to our
Speaker 3: series on authenticity?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was good.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm going to start with this message from Louisa.
Speaker 3: Luisa says, hi, guys, I've enjoyed your Authenticity series so
Speaker 3: very much. The part that really got to me was
Speaker 3: that we somehow equate being authentic with being good slash virtuous.
Speaker 3: You're pointing out that this is not necessarily true. Reminded
Speaker 3: me of a Max Frish play called The fire Raisers.
Speaker 3: In German, it's called Biedermann und d Bronzetifter, and if
Speaker 3: you're trying to look this play up, I think sometimes
Speaker 3: in English it's just called the Arsonists. Luisa goes on,
Speaker 3: if you're not familiar with it, it's basically about a
Speaker 3: group of men who set up in her Biedermann's attic.
Speaker 3: He asks them what they are planning to do with
Speaker 3: the gasoline they bring home, the incendiary devices they haul
Speaker 3: up the stairs, and other such things. They tell him
Speaker 3: outright that they are planning on setting the city on fire,
Speaker 3: and he either doesn't believe them or pretends he doesn't.
Speaker 3: It's a fascinating play, and I think it addresses some
Speaker 3: of the complex issues you raised in the series. As always,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for the podcast. It always leaves
Speaker 3: me with so many interesting ideas. Best regards, Luisa. Thanks Luisa.
Speaker 3: I'm I was not familiar with this play beforehand, but
Speaker 3: I went and read up about it, so yeah. The
Speaker 3: plot is, as Luisa describes, basically, like some guys, initially
Speaker 3: posing as salesmen, talk their way into this guy, this
Speaker 3: you know, regular guy's house and talk him into letting
Speaker 3: them stay in the attic, and then they increasingly are
Speaker 3: doing obviously suspicious stuff like you know, bringing in all
Speaker 3: of this this stuff that would clearly be designed to
Speaker 3: start fires with, and he ends up helping them and
Speaker 3: all this and and it's pretty clear what they're doing,
Speaker 3: but for some reason he just won't accept that they
Speaker 3: are actually the arsonists who have been starting all the fires.
Speaker 2: Hmm. Yeah, I'm not familiar with this work, but just
Speaker 2: looking around, it looks like there have been numerous TV
Speaker 2: movie adaptations of this over the years. I think a
Speaker 2: number of them were for like Swiss television. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it seems to be one of his works that has
Speaker 2: resonated really well and has thus been adapted.
Speaker 3: I think it is often taken as a commentary on
Speaker 3: the rise of extremist political factions within democracies, with the
Speaker 3: idea that like people would make excuses as the Nazis
Speaker 3: are coming to power. It's like, oh, it's just talk,
Speaker 3: They're not really going to do any of that kind
Speaker 3: of thing, which I would argue is not a good
Speaker 3: mindset to have. You know, if a political faction is
Speaker 3: making scary threats, I would say take them seriously.
Speaker 2: All right. This next one comes to us from Wayne.
Speaker 2: Wayne writes sentence says, Hi, Robert, Joe and JJ, your
Speaker 2: recent episodes on authenticity made me think of some issues
Speaker 2: that artificial intelligence has been bringing up in the last
Speaker 2: year or two. And just as a side note, we
Speaker 2: did I hear from a number of people sort of
Speaker 2: nudging us about the topic of artificial intelligence and AI
Speaker 2: generated art and imagery and so forth in response to
Speaker 2: these episodes. Anyway, Wayne continues here in particular, is AI
Speaker 2: generated art really art? I feel like one quality of
Speaker 2: good art is that it connects the viewer with the
Speaker 2: mind and soul of the artist in an authentic way.
Speaker 2: They had to make the art or they wouldn't be
Speaker 2: true to themselves. With AI generated art, there is no
Speaker 2: mind and soul behind it, where at best the average
Speaker 2: version of the whole Internet. Whenever I see a really
Speaker 2: cool image such as and Wayne shares an image here
Speaker 2: and a Joe, You're going to jump in on it
Speaker 2: in a second, he says. And then I found out
Speaker 2: it's been created by a program like mid Journey, it
Speaker 2: immediately feels empty to me.
Speaker 3: Thanks Wayne, Yeah, thank you Wayne. So, folks, if you
Speaker 3: want to look up the image that Wayne shared with us,
Speaker 3: the one he attaches is oh, it's got a French name.
Speaker 3: It's called a Teatra de opera spaciale or like theater
Speaker 3: de opera spatial and it was created by mid Journey
Speaker 3: based on prompts by someone named Jason Michael Allen. And
Speaker 3: apparently this image was sort of in the news because
Speaker 3: the prompt engineer here Alan submitted it to a digital
Speaker 3: art competition. From what I understand based on what I
Speaker 3: was reading, apparently being fully transparent, that the entry was
Speaker 3: created by AI. So it wasn't like, you know, trying
Speaker 3: to pass it off as something he had done with
Speaker 3: his own hand, but saying, yeah, here's an AI image
Speaker 3: that I prompt I created with prompts, and the image
Speaker 3: won a prize, and so there was some controversy I
Speaker 3: guess over whether it should have won a prize, whether
Speaker 3: it really counts as art, you know, whether it should
Speaker 3: have been allowed to enter, whether AI generated art can
Speaker 3: should be allowed to compete with the art created by
Speaker 3: human hands. But anyway, I would say yes, Wayne, at
Speaker 3: least to some extent, I agree with you whether or
Speaker 3: not we think AI generated creative objects like artworks and
Speaker 3: music and fiction can ever have qualitative parity with with
Speaker 3: works created by humans, whatever they're you know, the quality
Speaker 3: like the technical qualities are that we appreciate in these artworks,
Speaker 3: whether it can essentially pass as a human art work
Speaker 3: or not. I think there is probably still going to
Speaker 3: be a preference in most contexts to interact with art
Speaker 3: created by humans simply for the reason that it was
Speaker 3: created by a human. So I in this particular case
Speaker 3: of the art work you mentioned, the Tatra de Opera spatial,
Speaker 3: I enjoy it like I like this digital AI image
Speaker 3: more than a lot of AI generated art that I
Speaker 3: come across. A lot of times that these AI generated
Speaker 3: images like that they even in a sort of direct
Speaker 3: sensory capacity, a kind of lack character or personality. They
Speaker 3: often look too smooth and kind of samey. But I
Speaker 3: do like this image. However, despite the fact that I
Speaker 3: like it and just like a pure sensory way, I
Speaker 3: like the you know what the pixels are, Knowing that
Speaker 3: it was made by an AI causes an emotional change
Speaker 3: in me that does make me less interested in it.
Speaker 3: And I would say one difference is that for a
Speaker 3: scene like this, so this is like an imaginative scene
Speaker 3: that looks like it could come from a kind of
Speaker 3: a science fiction world, there are characters in it, there
Speaker 3: is a setting that looks sort of unlike our world,
Speaker 3: and it raises questions in the imagination. So when I
Speaker 3: see an image of a scene like this, or really
Speaker 3: any imaginative painting, it suggests a broader imagined world, Like
Speaker 3: if the image was created by a person, I would
Speaker 3: be tempted to wonder about the story behind it. You
Speaker 3: see this scene, but I wonder what else is happening
Speaker 3: in this imagined world, And that sort of depends on
Speaker 3: the creator having a broader imagination. Now to qualify you
Speaker 3: certainly could prompt the AI to generate more images from
Speaker 3: the same world, and it would, you know, confabulate as needed.
Speaker 3: But that is not as emotionally exciting to my mind
Speaker 3: the same It's not the same way it would be
Speaker 3: to imagine what else a human artist was imagining.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because to your point, there is no story behind it.
Speaker 2: There is just a yawning, grotesque emptiness. And that is
Speaker 2: That's ultimately what I keep finding myself confronting nowadays when
Speaker 2: I look at something or listen to something as is
Speaker 2: now currently in the news, to something created by AI,
Speaker 2: even if to varying degrees, yes there is a human
Speaker 2: I'm involved in the loop giving it words, deciding exactly
Speaker 2: how it's going to be calibrated, again with varying degrees
Speaker 2: of detail depending on the system, but still the results
Speaker 2: almost always ring hollow in and of themselves, and if
Speaker 2: they don't ring hollow in and of themselves, it's that
Speaker 2: additional knowledge that this was created by a machine that
Speaker 2: just kind of like sucks the life of it in
Speaker 2: the same way, in a similar way anyway that the
Speaker 2: life might be sucked out of a piece of art
Speaker 2: if you found out something just particularly awful about the
Speaker 2: human behind it. Now, even then, depending on the artwork
Speaker 2: and your exact relation with the you know, sort of
Speaker 2: the algorithm of separating the author and the artist, it
Speaker 2: might not change it too much, or it might change
Speaker 2: it in a way where it was still interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: at least you're like, well, this is a very disturbed person.
Speaker 2: I don't really enjoy this work anymore, but it is
Speaker 2: perhaps some interesting inside. There's no insight to be gained.
Speaker 2: It's insight into an algorithm which is just completely devoid
Speaker 2: of humanity on the surface of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I might not say there's no insight to
Speaker 3: be gained, but it's a different kind of insight, and
Speaker 3: it's not like a it's not an exciting, warm, human
Speaker 3: emotional insight. It's more an insight into systems and how
Speaker 3: machines work, and things about the you know, the corpus
Speaker 3: of the Internet and that sort.
Speaker 2: Of yeah, yeah, things like oh well, this is what
Speaker 2: this is, sort of like the tortured and re tortured
Speaker 2: remnants of what happens when you get an aggregate of
Speaker 2: the Internet's vision of reality and things like that. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of interesting things going on and
Speaker 2: how these systems are working and malfunctioning. But god, it
Speaker 2: just at the end of the day, it kind of
Speaker 2: ticks me off more and more.
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk about the music you were
Speaker 3: sharing with me?
Speaker 2: I don't want to name the program or the website
Speaker 2: that is used. I mean, it's out there. There's like
Speaker 2: a Rolling Stone article about it. But yeah, we had
Speaker 2: one of our listeners sent some examples to me and said, hey,
Speaker 2: check this out. So of course, you know, I wanted
Speaker 2: to check it out so then I could have some
Speaker 2: frame of reference to talk about it. And yeah, it
Speaker 2: was kind of horrifying because it did a much better
Speaker 2: job than I expected, and yet at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, like the things that came up with were
Speaker 2: solidly mediocre.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was my feeling as well. I was both
Speaker 3: with incredibly impressed and really deflated so hearing these AI
Speaker 3: created songs with vocals that had supplied lyrics. On one hand,
Speaker 3: it was much better technically than it had any right
Speaker 3: to be, like it was frighteningly passable as music actually
Speaker 3: created by humans. On the other hand, I hated all
Speaker 3: of it, like it's the kind of music that if
Speaker 3: it was created by humans, I would not be interested
Speaker 3: in listening to more. It had this this kind of
Speaker 3: horribly generic personality free equality to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I have all sorts of questions about how
Speaker 2: it is ultimately sourced, what sort of guardrails are on
Speaker 2: there currently, because I know with this particular system you
Speaker 2: can't put in or you're not supposed to put in,
Speaker 2: or it doesn't recognize or it's made not to recognize
Speaker 2: the names of individual artists, and so yeah, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how all that works out exactly. And also I
Speaker 2: just can't help but imagine some scenario like, Okay, if
Speaker 2: you have an AI just endlessly creating new songs in
Speaker 2: different genres, and then there is any level of like
Speaker 2: legal right to those songs that it just turns out
Speaker 2: constantly like what does that mean for just like the
Speaker 2: legal aspect of song creation moving forward, you know, which
Speaker 2: is you know, already a very crowded realm of tunes
Speaker 2: and melodies and riffs and so forth.
Speaker 3: Oh are you saying, like the musical equivalent of if
Speaker 3: you just have a machine create the library of babble
Speaker 3: and then file for copyright on every book in it,
Speaker 3: so any book that a human rights afterwards already exists
Speaker 3: in the library and that we already did that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's like you have automated AI copyright trolls. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and maybe there ends up being a situation where oh,
Speaker 2: there has to be a human in the loop for
Speaker 2: it to count. But then maybe there's just this one
Speaker 2: human there's a name on a document, and that humans
Speaker 2: in the loop, so that human has the copyright to
Speaker 2: all the I don't know, I'm fine here, I'm this
Speaker 2: is just technological anxiety, maybe to a large extent, And
Speaker 2: maybe folks who have more insight on the legalities of
Speaker 2: all of this can chime in and set us straight.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know, we have there are lawyers that listen,
Speaker 3: and so I'd be interested to hear your perspectives. But
Speaker 3: it seems to me that AI is currently stress testing
Speaker 3: or testing the boundaries of our concepts of authorship and
Speaker 3: intellectual property and all things like that.
Speaker 2: Now, of course, if you listen to the great you
Speaker 2: know all of the more positive and optimistic views, like
Speaker 2: AI is supposed to be changing all of our lives
Speaker 2: for the better, and AI is going to be our assistant,
Speaker 2: our collaborators and help us overcome wicked problems in the world.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. It seems like most of what
Speaker 2: we see is it creating bad art these days? All right,
Speaker 2: that's the end of my butler and rant there.
Speaker 3: Sorry, all right, I think we're going to shift over
Speaker 3: because we got a bunch of stuff in the mailbox
Speaker 3: about Weird House cinema, so we need to address some
Speaker 3: of that. First of all, this is just we don't
Speaker 3: need to read this whole message, but we did get
Speaker 3: a message from listener Jeff amending a previous comment about
Speaker 3: the Netflix adaptation called Delicious in Dungeon. This is where
Speaker 3: like some adventurers in Dungeons and Dragons basically are going
Speaker 3: through a dungeon fighting monsters and then cooking them, and
Speaker 3: so it was like a combination fantasy adventure show and
Speaker 3: a cooking show. And Jeff had previously told us that
Speaker 3: this show was appropriate for kids. Jeff says that was
Speaker 3: a true at the time he sent the original message,
Speaker 3: but since then some more episodes have been released and says, now, actually,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe this is not a fully family friendly program.
Speaker 3: Maybe parents check it out first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fair enough. We have encountered similar situations before
Speaker 2: with shows where like the rating seems a bit high,
Speaker 2: particularly with some anime type stuff where uh, you know,
Speaker 2: in isolation, one episode may seem very cute and charming
Speaker 2: and not you know, too serious, but then it'll go
Speaker 2: off the rails in the next. So yeah, it's always
Speaker 2: good to I've become the sort of person who always
Speaker 2: goes and looks at the IMDb users submitted like parental guidelines,
Speaker 2: or sometimes I'll check out does the Dog Die to see,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the potential trigger points on given
Speaker 2: pieces of media and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was the movie we watched for a Weird
Speaker 3: House that had appearance guide warning about a character being
Speaker 3: implied to nude off screen?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh yeah, implied nudity. Yeah, that one definitely sticks
Speaker 2: with me. Sometimes the youth Again users submitted parental tips
Speaker 2: for films and TV shows on IMDb. Sometimes it can
Speaker 2: be quite hilarious, but oftentimes it broad and more broadly speaking,
Speaker 2: it can be very helpful for helping to choose something
Speaker 2: for your own viewing, for family viewing, and also for
Speaker 2: weird House sometimes. I mean that's one of the first
Speaker 2: things I check when we're thinking about watching something for
Speaker 2: Weird House, just to see what sort of stuff happens
Speaker 2: in the movie and it's.
Speaker 3: Going to be a gross bummer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I just sort of to see, Okay, is
Speaker 2: there anything here that just probably disqualifies it? And if so,
Speaker 2: then I'm just gonna move on to something else. Though
Speaker 2: again it's user submitted, so it's not all It doesn't
Speaker 2: know everything either. Yeah, all right, This next one comes
Speaker 2: to us from Pat. Pat writes in and says Rob
Speaker 2: Joe the Weird House Dune set was great, A lot
Speaker 2: of fun diving into the dune world and the world
Speaker 2: of David Lynch more Lynch movies, please one missed point.
Speaker 2: Saint Aliah of the Knife is played by Alicia Witt,
Speaker 2: familiar to my fellow Hallmart cheesy Christmas movie fans, and
Speaker 2: a creepy character from Walking Dead.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I I don't really know Walking Dead. I
Speaker 3: do watch some cheesy Christmas movies seasonally with Rachel. That's
Speaker 3: kind of a fun thing we do sometimes. But I'm
Speaker 3: more familiar with like the bad Netflix Christmas movies. I
Speaker 3: don't think I know the Hallmark ones as much unless
Speaker 3: there's some overlap there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I fell off of watching Walking
Speaker 2: Dead before her character was introduced. And as far as
Speaker 2: Christmas shows go, Yeah, I have to have a ghost
Speaker 2: or a monster in my Christmas movies. It's just how
Speaker 2: I am at this point. Sorry.
Speaker 3: With some of the Christmas movies, you can kind of
Speaker 3: imagine a monstrous plot behind them, like it's unstated. But
Speaker 3: these are characters that are all like I don't know,
Speaker 3: like virtual personalities created inside inside, like a virtuosity kind
Speaker 3: of scenario, that are about to become sentient and it
Speaker 3: could happen any moment.
Speaker 2: We'll see. I'll allow that a nice sci fi element
Speaker 2: is good, but yeah, otherwise it's like I'm watching a
Speaker 2: Christmas movie and it needs to be a fantastic element.
Speaker 2: It needs to be magic or monsters. It's not that
Speaker 2: big of an app It can be a Grinch, it
Speaker 2: can be a ghost of Christmas past, president or future.
Speaker 2: It can just be the existence of Santa Claus. That's
Speaker 2: why again I applaud the ted Lasso series for creating
Speaker 2: a universe in which Santa Claus definitely exists. And I
Speaker 2: think that's something we have to remember anytime we watch
Speaker 2: an episode of ted Lasso. This Santa Claus definitely exists
Speaker 2: in this universe. Who don't know what will happen next.
Speaker 3: Like he's physically at the North Pole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is a This is a universe in
Speaker 2: which Santa Claus is real, is at the North Pole,
Speaker 2: does fly around every Christmas in a sleigh pulled by reindeer,
Speaker 2: And so you know that magic is real, that magic
Speaker 2: is possible. So who knows? Every time I go into
Speaker 2: a ted Lasso episode, I'm like, what's what's going to
Speaker 2: happen next? The gates of Hell could open and it
Speaker 2: will be in keeping with what we've established, though it
Speaker 2: never does anyway, pack continue expected it. One point you
Speaker 2: made referred to over emphasizing the power of the spacing
Speaker 2: Guild disagree. A major theme of the novels is the
Speaker 2: political problem of the overlordship of the Guild in space travel.
Speaker 2: Every group of human culture in Herbert's universe struggles with
Speaker 2: this at the highest levels. When Paul Assum's control over
Speaker 2: the Guild by threatening Spice production, he becomes a stronger
Speaker 2: emperor in all of Herbert's history. This leads me to
Speaker 2: one problem I have with the Newsdoom in that he
Speaker 2: plays down this aspect. The story falls apart if it
Speaker 2: is not taken that Aracus is the only planet with Spice,
Speaker 2: a galaxy wide empire powered by the Guild's ability to
Speaker 2: provide transportation. All of the film adaptations downplay the galactic
Speaker 2: addiction to Spice. Herbert's books make it very clear that
Speaker 2: all of the nobility are addicts. Science fiction fans know
Speaker 2: that intersolar systemic travel is a silly idea. There is
Speaker 2: no extent theory that would allow this. The fun of
Speaker 2: science fiction is in what if, in this case, the
Speaker 2: Space and Guild's ability to fold space thissability is an
Speaker 2: offshoot of spice addiction.
Speaker 3: Hmm, okay, Well, to defend what we said, I don't
Speaker 3: think we were making the case that David Lynch should
Speaker 3: not have emphasized the spacing Guild. I think we were
Speaker 3: talking about that there are like, because the novel is
Speaker 3: so huge and the world is so big, you kind
Speaker 3: of have to like pick what you're going to focus
Speaker 3: on in a movie adaptation, unless the movie adaptation is
Speaker 3: going to be like a you know, ten hour mini
Speaker 3: series or something. But you know, if you're going to
Speaker 3: do something within movie length range, you've really got to
Speaker 3: You've got to just select things to zoom in on
Speaker 3: and leave some other things by the wayside. So the
Speaker 3: Lynch movie really picks the spacing Guild to focus on
Speaker 3: the expense of focusing on like the Benny Jesrett and
Speaker 3: other things, whereas the newer movies focus more on the
Speaker 3: politics of the Benny Jesret. They're different choices, and I
Speaker 3: think the Benny Jesert focus works really well in the
Speaker 3: new movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, he had to the team
Speaker 2: in general had to decide on what they were going
Speaker 2: to focus on, and they focused on the Beni Jesterrett
Speaker 2: and they did a really good job with them. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love the space and Guild. I would have liked
Speaker 2: to have seen more from them, but you just have
Speaker 2: to make these choices in adaptation. By the way, and
Speaker 2: I say this in part because I've gone back and
Speaker 2: started rereading Doom, but I believe it's actually the Holtzman
Speaker 2: effect that allows for the folding of space, and that
Speaker 2: spice enables the guild steersman or navigator to just choose
Speaker 2: the safest, safest path through space. But solid point on
Speaker 2: the life extending properties of the spice. It is said
Speaker 2: in the books especially that like, if you can afford spice,
Speaker 2: you are probably on spice in part to prolong human life.
Speaker 3: Yes, now, do I remember correctly that the whole thing
Speaker 3: about the guild navigators needing spice, as you say, it
Speaker 3: allows them to see the safest path through folded space.
Speaker 3: It's like it's essentially that the spice give grants some foreknowledge,
Speaker 3: like you can kind of see the future, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the way I always think about it again,
Speaker 2: it comes back to we can't have computers. We need
Speaker 2: human minds that can do the things that computers would
Speaker 2: other otherwise do, in this case safely navigate a complex system.
Speaker 2: And the spice allows the guild steersman or navigator to
Speaker 2: sort of see just far enough in the future to
Speaker 2: avoid catastrophe, and so it's you know, it's not substantial
Speaker 2: for sight, but it is just enough to avoid the dangers.
Speaker 2: And so it's often pointed out that the Guild kind
Speaker 2: of takes the safest path through anything. So it's a
Speaker 2: safe path. It doesn't mean it's the most direct path.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean it's the fastest. It may be quite slow,
Speaker 2: but this is how they navigate things.
Speaker 3: It's not complete knowledge of the future, but it's like
Speaker 3: a Spidey sense.
Speaker 2: Maybe, yeah, right, Pack continues. You also mentioned that David
Speaker 2: Lynch weekly refers to the greater galactic culture of Herbert
Speaker 2: Stune universe by mentioning Ix the Benny Fleelax the Rishi's
Speaker 2: Lynch also downplays the lanstrad and Chom does Venue even
Speaker 2: mentioned Chrome Chom. One weakness of all the film adaptations
Speaker 2: is that they gloss over Herbert's politics. Disagree the novels
Speaker 2: are all about politics. The Fremen or free Men, represent
Speaker 2: a difference in culture with the rest of the Empire.
Speaker 2: The empire is feudalistic, balanced with a corporate superstructure. When
Speaker 2: Paul creates a new empire, he sweeps away ancient life patterns.
Speaker 2: The feudalism of Herbert's galactic empire is made clear by
Speaker 2: many references to the butleran Jahad. One cannot create a
Speaker 2: machine which mimics the human mind. What replaces machines in
Speaker 2: such a society human labor and feudalism. While Herbert does
Speaker 2: not explicitly explain the roles of Ix and Rieschi's in
Speaker 2: this structure, he does invite the reader to think as
Speaker 2: Lynch did solid point. Yeah, there's a great deal of
Speaker 2: political intrigue that the movies just generally don't get into,
Speaker 2: that generally can't get into. Like a lot of Dune fans,
Speaker 2: I really love the banquet scene in the book because
Speaker 2: of this, because you get to see a lot of
Speaker 2: just even the planetary factions interacting with each other. But
Speaker 2: I think this has only come to life on screen
Speaker 2: for this by mini series. Yeah.
Speaker 3: One thing I like about the politics of Dune is
Speaker 3: that it represents a complex world in which, as in
Speaker 3: the real world, like, there is a balance of power
Speaker 3: and there are different factions competing for power, so as
Speaker 3: where you know, in like the Star Wars universe, you
Speaker 3: don't often get a lot of that. It's just sort
Speaker 3: of like the empire is on top. They are essentially
Speaker 3: all powerful except for the rebellion fighting against them. So
Speaker 3: they're like two forces basically, and they're in direct conflict.
Speaker 3: You know, that gets filled out more in the extended
Speaker 3: universe stuff, but you know, the original picture is pretty
Speaker 3: like two has two poles of power, whereas in the
Speaker 3: Dune universe you get to see, for example, that like
Speaker 3: the Emperor is very powerful but has to manage a
Speaker 3: lot of factions that can all like come against him,
Speaker 3: and they all have power over him even though he
Speaker 3: is technically the boss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, pac continues another myssed another area missed
Speaker 2: in the film the great schools of Herbert's universe, the
Speaker 2: Bennie jester At, the Bennie Leelax, the Mentats, the Silk School,
Speaker 2: and the Ganas. The magic present in this universe is
Speaker 2: explained by Herbert as intense development, training and education and specialization.
Speaker 2: A favorite idea I have concerns Paul's duel with Fade
Speaker 2: in the film. As in the book Fade Ratha attempts
Speaker 2: treachery by poison. Paul is a Mentat and the Quisach Haatarak.
Speaker 2: He would have seen the attempt with presidents, he would
Speaker 2: have sneered as with his benijesurate training, he would be
Speaker 2: immune to poison. Herbert was not perfect now on this note,
Speaker 2: so to be clear, I had to go back and
Speaker 2: reread the final Knighte fight, and this sweat into me
Speaker 2: like starting the book over again. But Paul and his
Speaker 2: mother do anticipate poison, and while like Paul's faction does
Speaker 2: briefly discuss his fighting Fade is something that is dangerous
Speaker 2: and unnecessary, he does in fact use his powers to
Speaker 2: babolize the slowing poison that Fade manages to nick him with.
Speaker 2: But he also he also somewhat underestimates Fade to a
Speaker 2: certain extent. So, just to read a quick fragment from
Speaker 2: this part of the novel, quote, Paul remained silent, probing
Speaker 2: with his inner senses, examining the blood from the wound.
Speaker 2: Finding a trace of soporific from the Emperor's blade. He
Speaker 2: realigned his own metabolism to match this threat and change
Speaker 2: the molecules of the soporific, but he felt a thrill
Speaker 2: of doubt. They've been prepared with soporific on a blade.
Speaker 2: A soporific nothing to alert a poison snooper, but strong
Speaker 2: enough to slow the muscles it touched. His enemies had
Speaker 2: their own plans within plans, their own stacked treacheries.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so it's not a killing poison. It's something
Speaker 3: that is supposed to be subtle enough to be not
Speaker 3: noticed by someone who does normally notice poisons. But it
Speaker 3: would slow Paul down in the fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to sort of throw him off his game in
Speaker 2: a very tint situation with a number of factors political
Speaker 2: and otherwise. Yeah, so I'm not sure it was one
Speaker 2: hundred percent in the bag at this point for Paul.
Speaker 2: I think he gambles. He doesn't take the safest path,
Speaker 2: you know, as the Guild takes the safest path and
Speaker 2: navigating the stars. But that's one thing that makes him
Speaker 2: a trades you know, he is going to do the
Speaker 2: daring thing and the times reckless thing instead. Anyway, Pat
Speaker 2: closes out, as always many things.
Speaker 3: Pat Okay, Well, I think we have to close it
Speaker 3: there for today, but we have a bunch more messages
Speaker 3: to get to, so we'll have to address them next week.
Speaker 3: So tune in again next Monday for more listener mail.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we're happy to continue to discuss these various topics,
Speaker 2: continue to geek out on done if necessary. So yeah,
Speaker 2: right in, we'd love to hear from you. Just a
Speaker 2: reminder that Stuff to Plow Your Mind's primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mondays are when
Speaker 2: we do our listener mail episode, So right in.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this side or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stufft blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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