Christina's Thoughts

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24. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
25. Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
26. Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
27. Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
28. Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov

It's been a long time since I read the Foundation series. And I have to say that, upon rereading them, I was rather less impressed than in the past. Oh, there are some interesting ideas, certainly. Extraordinarily weak characterizations, but interesting ideas.

The idea of Psychohistory is an interesting one. And I think it is, in general, quite plausible. We can already make some crude statistical predictions of human behavior. I think it's reasonable to suppose that one could predict the behavior of entire worlds and interstellar unions, at least in the short run. However, several problems exist in Asimov's idea of psychohistory:

( lengthy rant )

Also, another rant, more general to a lot of sci-fi, but present also in the Foundation series. The idea of a single galactic language. There are thousands of languages on Earth, including dozens with tens or hundreds of millions of speakers. I cannot believe that only one language would leave Earth. Speakers of many languages would leave Earth, especially once space travel became relatively cheap. The first wave would probably only have a few major languages, such as English, Spanish, Chinese, maybe a few other European languages. But other languages would follow. The earliest planets would almost certainly be multilingual. In the early days of space exploration, there would be few suitable planets available for colonization. And the first colonies would be small in number. I cannot believe that the first colonists on a planet would be able to stake a meaningful claim to the entire planet. There would be a number of independent settlements. Later on, as space travel became easier and the number of colony worlds grew, you might be able to have colonies staking a claim to their entire planet, so later worlds might be monolingual, but different worlds would have different languages. Some would speak English, some Spanish, some Chinese (probably several different Chinese languages), Japanese, Hindi, Swahili, German, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and a whole host of other languages. Even small languages like Icelandic might find worlds of their own. Furthermore, even if somehow only a single language left Earth (all but one language had died out by that point? Don't believe it. I could buy the number of languages declining to a few dozen, but not to one), over the 8,000 years that had been said to have passed between the origins of hyperspatial travel and the rise of the Galacti Empire (and the 12,000 years between the rise and fall of the same), there'd be plenty of time for each world to evolve its own language. The Indo-European family of languages, which includes languages as distinct as English, French, Russian, Farsi, Hindi, is descended from a common ancestor generally believed to have been spoken somewhere around 6,000-10,000 years ago. 20,000 years would be enough to turn a single language into descendants unrecognizable as being related to each other (at least, under current linguistic understanding; but given both intermixing of languages and the obscuring tendencies of linguistic changes, I suspect that it would never be possible to reconstruct a family stretching back that far). There could be no "Galactic". At best, there'd be a dominant language, such as "Trantorian", known and used throughout the Empire, in the same way as English is often used in our world by non-native speakers. Even Star Wars did better than Foundation in that regards! C-3PO was said to be "fluent in over six million forms of communication"!

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22. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

World War Z is a collection of interviews with various survivors and veterans of the Zombie War, the great worldwide war against the zombie hordes. It was written a decade after Victory in China Day, considered the official end of major action, although there remain some zombies, who are still being eliminated as they are found. Through the stories told by the various interviewees, people from around the world, the horrors of the Zombie War are revealed, the disasters and the triumphs, from the US Army's catastrophic defeat at Yonkers and similar defeats by other nations, to the slow campaign to retake the world from the zombies, and stories from the continuing effort to eliminate the last of the zombies. Brooks describes the initial slow response to the zombies, the attempt to cover up the first major public outbreak, in South Africa, as "rabies" and the large-scale cover-up by the Chinese government, before it became impossible to conceal any longer.

The interviews are arranged chronologically, with stories from the earliest stages of the growing zombie threat at the beginning of the book, and the last clean-up at the end. He describes not only the horror of the zombie war, but also the ways humanity found to survive and fight back, the scarring of the land and the people from the global apocalypse, and the political changes as well, as in the Holy Empire of Russia and the rise of democracy in Cuba, after millions of refugees from the United States settled, temporarily, in Cuba, and brought with them democratic ideals that Castro could not suppress, especially not while simultaneously defending the nation from zombies.

It's an excellent book, a very unorthodox kind of horror, but a very engrossing one.

Oops, forgot a book.

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21. I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir by Jennifer Finney Boylan

I'd already read She's Not There by the same author, which was another autobiography. I'm Looking Through You deals more with her childhood and with her relationships to her family. It focuses more on the internal struggle of her gender identity.

I've let this go too long without updating. :-)

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13. Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs Edited by Jonathan Ames
14. Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People by Joan Roughgarden
15. Gender Shock: Exploding the Myths of Male and Female by Phyllis Burke
16. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell
17. The Transgender Companion (Male to Female) by Jennifer Seeley
18. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serrano
19. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex by Alice Domurat Dreger
20. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul by Leslie Feinberg

Some very interesting books here. ( Evolution's Rainbow )

( Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe )

( Whipping Girl )

( Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex )

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12. As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl by John Colapinto

As Nature Made Him is about the famous "John/Joan" case. It began in 1967, when a botched circumcision caused an 8-month-old baby boy named Bruce Reimer to lose his penis. At the time, phalloplasties were still very crude, and they were unable to construct a useable penis. Seeking help for their son, his parents met Dr. John Money, who believed, as was commonly held at the time, that gender identity was purely learned, a result of early childhood experiences. He told them that they would be able to perform sex reassignment surgery on their infant son, turning him into a girl, and that, if they raised her as a girl, she would grow up to be a well-adjusted woman. Desperate for help, they agreed, and Bruce became Brenda. As it turned out, Bruce was part of a set of identical twins, with a twin brother named Brian.

Early reports claimed that the operation was a success and that Brenda had taken to a female identity very well. At most, there were admissions of "tomboyish" behavior, but it was claimed that she was happy as a girl.

The truth, however, was that she did not take to the female identity, and from an early age realized that something was wrong. She identified more with boys than with girls, despite her parents' best efforts to encourage femininity. The surgery performed in infancy was only the first phase, and a follow-up would be required later in life, during adolescence. In addition, beginning at 12, she was to be put on hormones to induce feminine puberty. She consistently refused to even discuss the surgery (which was explained to her as simply a need to correct a birth defect; at that point, she had no idea that she'd been born a girl) and initially tried to reject the hormones as well.

Eventually, at age 14, her parents told her the truth. She subsequently rejected a female identity, and began living as male, completely refusing the hormones (and later receiving a masectomy to remove the breasts that had begun to develop, and testosterone injections to remasculinze his body). He didn't like the name he'd been originally given, and chose to go with either Joe or David, letting his parents choose between the two.

The case disappeared from the publicity after that. David just wanted to live his life quietly without publicity, and Dr. Money didn't want to admit that the supposed greatest evidence for his belief in learned gender identity was, in fact, a complete refution of that belief. It wasn't until the 1990s that the story first came out, at the time, using the pseudonyms "Joan" and "John" for Brenda and David. A few years after that, David agreed to come out publically with full details about what he'd gone through, particularly after he'd learned that his case had been use to justify other attempts to feminize boys with damaged genitals, which had also failed to instill a female identity.

It's a fascinating, powerful book. Very sad story.

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11. Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures by Carl Zimmer

Parasite Rex discusses parastism in a wide variety of organisms, both of hosts and of parasites, mostly multicellular, but also some unicellular organisms. The book discusses the various tactics used by parasites to evade their hosts' immune systems and to modify their hosts to fit their needs, including behavioral alterations (such as Toxoplasma making rats less fearful, and thus more easily caught by cats, which are thus themselves infected), as well as adaptations by hosts to attempt to control or evade parasites. It's a fascinating read. Parasites have some of the coolest adaptations in the natural world. In a way, they're really the champions of evolution, displaying far greater sophistication than many free-living creatures. Indeed, species of parasites are believed to outnumber species of free-living organisms by some four to one, there are even parasites that parasitize other parasites!

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9. She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan
10. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'engle

I tried reading A Wrinkle in Time once before, in middle school. At the time, I was uninterested. Reading it again, I found it a decent read. It was a bit overly-preachy with the Christian elements at parts, and there was a lot of unanswered questions (like why, if they could go through time, their father had to be left in that prison for so long, and why he couldn't've been returned to the same time he left, not to mention the rather surprising uselessness of allegedly superhuman beings). Still, it was a decent read, and quick. I read about half of it today at work. It was completely dead the first part of the day. ^_^

Current Mood: full

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8. The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherin A. Liszt

This book was recommended to me by hazumuchan. It's a rather interesting book about polyamory, and making polyamorous relationships work. For whatever reason, polyamorous-type relationships have always attracted me, long before I knew the word. The concept that my being with someone should limit them never made much sense to me. Anyways, while I have no idea whether I'll ever actually be in such a relationship, I did find the book quite an interesting read. ^_^

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7. Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements by Austin Burt and Robert Trivers

An interesting book. It took me a while to read it, as various things kept keeping me from getting a chance to sit down and read. It's also fairly long (475 pages, excluding references) and highly detailed. It describes selfish genetic material (selfish genes, meiotic drive genes, B chromosomes, endosymbiotes, etc.) in a wide range of organisms, mostly eukaryotes (and especially multicellular ones), but also prokaryotes. It's also fairly technical. It's definitely a great book if you're intrested in the topic and know a fair amount about it already.

Current Mood: geeky

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4. Deaf President Now!: The 1988 Revolution at Gaullaudet University by John B. Christensen and Sharon N. Barnartt
5. Deaf in America: Voices From a Culture by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries
6. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Deaf President Now!

This was a description of the Deaf President Now riots in March, 1988 at Gallaudet University, a university in Washington, DC for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing students, the oldest such institution in the United States. Wikipedia has a decent summary of it. The book goes into great detail about both the lead-up to the riots, the actions taken by some students and various Deaf individuals outside of the school to promote the idea of a Deaf President, and the actions taken to protest the choice of Elizabeth Zinser as President. It details both how the riots gained support among the student body and outsiders, and the actions taken by both sides, as well as the reasons for its success. It's an intriguing story and, in an amusing coincidence, I happened to start it on the 21st anniversary of the beginning of the protests, and ended it on the anniversary of the end!

Deaf in America
This book, written by two Deaf individuals, is a description of Deaf American culture and history. One of the authors, Padden, has also written a number of linguistic analyses of ASL. They describe various subdivisions among the D/deaf. They talk about, for example, how Deaf culture is transmitted from generation to generation, "learning to be Deaf" as the first chapter puts it. They also discuss differences between Deaf and hearing cultures, and confronts assumptions made by hearing people about the Deaf. They describe changes since the late 20th century in the relationship between Deaf and hearing cultures

The Handmaid's Tale
Very interesting book. Rather unusual style, but quite engrossing. Read it in about 4 days. Amusingly, on Twitter, when I mentioned starting it, I got two replies. The first "ooh, that's one of my favorites! enjoy :)" the second "ugh I strongly dislike that book @_@" Strong responses both ways. :D Anyhoo, I found it quite interesting. Rather frightening. A bit implausible at parts, but otherwise very good.

1. Apocryphal Tales by Karel Čapek
2. The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks? by Jan Zalasiewicz
3. Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search For (and Synthesis of) Alien Life by Peter Ward

Life As We Do Not Know It is, as the title implies, a discussion on non-Earth-like life, especially as it may exist in the Solar System. The author starts with a discussion on just what Life is, and then goes on to describe specifically Earth life. He then goes on to discuss various theories about the origin of life on Earth, and their relevance to possible alien life. Finally, having covered those topics, he goes on to describe possible non-Earth-like forms of life, including both alternate forms of carbon-based life and the possibility of silicon-based life (which he thinks may be possible under certain conditions).

In chapter 6, he discusses the possibility of "alien" life on Earth. That is, life that falls outside of the standard DNA-based life, including the possibility of cellular RNA life. It is thought by many that the first forms of life would've been RNA-based, and it's possible that some such forms still exist. RNA viruses exist, and he argues that viruses are living, but he also discusses the possibility of autonomous RNA-based cellular life, and the difficulty we'd have in detecting such life. He erects a new taxonomic level above the domain called a "dominion", of which he argues there are two known on Earth, "Terroan" (DNA-based life) and Ribosa (RNA-based life). Later in the book, he proposes a second, even higher, level, the "Arborea" (from Latin "arbor", tree), which would be all life descended from a single origin. As all life on Earth is believed to have a common ancestor, that category would have no practical use at present, there being only a single known Arborea, the Terra arborea, but if we discover life on other worlds, then we might well need to establish multiple arboreas.

After having set out these basics, he then goes on to discuss the possilibity of life on various planets, starting with Mercury (which he rules out), Venus (life may be possible in the upper clouds, but surface conditions are unlikely to permit any form of life), the Moon (again, no liklihood of actual life, but there's a good possibility of fossil bacteria from Earth and other world from material ejected in asteroid collissions), Mars (quite likely, and good evidence suggestive of some kind of microbial life; he also considers the possibility that there might be fossils of multicellular life from the early days of Mars), Jupiter's moon Europa (possible, but he thinks the chances are low), Saturn's moon Titan (he considers this highly probable, and argues that Titan may even have multiple forms of life, but carbon-based and silicon-based in different environments), and finally Neptune's moon Triton (possible, but not a huge possibility)

He also discusses the fear that we may have already infected other planets with our own bacteria. Personally, I don't think that's much of a concern. It seems to me that if native organisms had evolved on those other planets, they'd be far better adapted to local conditions, and Earth life couldn't possibly hope to compete. Only if those planets were dead could Earth life succeed. And in that event, contamination wouldn't be a problem, since we wouldn't be harming other life.

It's a very interesting book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in astrobiology. He focuses entirely on microbial life, since there's very little chance of multicellular life in our solar system outside of Earth (and any life outside of our solar system would remain unaccessible to us in our lifetimes; barring the aliens themselves visiting, of course).

1. Apocryphal Tales by Karel Čapek
2. The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks? by Jan Zalasiewicz

The Earth After Us explores the concept of what fossil evidence will be left of humanity 100 million years from now. It describes how a hypothetical alien race, or, alternately, a future sapient species, would, in exploring the Earth's past, come to discover the existence of humanity. In doing so, he also provides an education about how paleontologists reconstruct the past, and about geological processes that shape the Earth.

He describes the effects that humanity would leave in the fossil record. The wide-spread mass extinctions, the otherwise-inexplicable movements of plants and animals across oceans, and so forth, imagining these beings slowly working out the remarkable hypothesis that there may have been an intelligent civilization at the time of the Sixth Extinction. Finally, he describes the potential for fossilization of actual humans and human artificats, the so-called "Urban Strata", and the various fossilized signs of human actions, such as mine shafts and oil excavation and the like. He describes the places that would have the best chance of preservation (coastal areas, especially in river deltas), and considers what would be likely to survive and in what form, and what they would be able to deduce about humans. Very little of details. They could get some idea of our appearance from preserved skeletons - and the common practice of burial would ensure quite a few fossilized remains. One could only imagine the excitement when the first cemetary was excavated! And potentially the confusion, if this hypothetical species did not have any similar practice. Why were the bodies arranged in such neat rows and so well-preserved? Clearly they must've been rapidly buried, but how did the burial preserve them in such uniform positions? At any rate, there is a good deal that they could not deduce. There would, for example, be no evidence that would allow them to deduce that humans were largely hairless, and, as our skeletons would make our mammalian nature clear, it is reasonable to assume that they would conclude that we were covered with fur, especially since some of our settlements were in areas that would've been quite cold during our existence. It is possible, he noted, that some statues might survive. If so, they would gain some better understanding of our appearance, depending on how well-preserved those statues were. There might even be a few specimens with soft tissue preserved. Very few of those, however. Standard burial practices, while they'd preserve the skeleton beautifully, do not prevent decay of soft tissues. Some very general behavioral patterns could be deduced. It would be found that our population was clustered in a few large settlements, which would indicate a highly-social species. They'd also find, at least in some sites, a fairly small number of juvenile skeletons, indicating a high degree of parental investment. Though, there would be some confusion, given that the sites they found would be spread out over various regions of Earth and various times, and some times and places have far greater child mortality. They'd know that we must've had some efficient form of transportation, given the wide extent of our species and the uniformity of certain plants and animals, but it's unlikely that they'd find any evidence of what kind of vehicles we used. There would be many skeletons with healed fractures and crippling injuries which would also indicate a highly-social species that took care of its wounded. On the other hand, they'd also be likely to find mass graves from wars and genocides which would show intraspecies violence.

It's unlikely that they would be able to deduce the significance of most of our buildings. After all, as he pointed out, we're not even sure what structures like Stonehenge were made for, and that's only a few millennia ago and built by our own species, whose psychology we understand! How much more difficulty would a completely alien race have in determining the significance of the distorted remains of our buildings! They'd be able to deduce that, for example, a stadium probably had some purpose as a form of bringing large groups of people together, but they'd have no way of knowing that it was for purposes of entertainment as opposed to, say, education or government or religion (assuming that they even understood the concept of religion ...)

He also touched briefly on the artifacts left on the Moon. Those would still be in nearly-pristine condition 100 million years from now. However, the chances of our hypothetical aliens stumbling upon them would be extraordinarily tiny, even if they decided to look.

Our evolutionary history would also be a mystery to them. Most non-human primates exist in areas that have very poor prospects for fossilization. It's unlikely that any evidence of those primates would survive 100 million years into the future. Thus, we'd seem to have appeared from nowhere. There might even initially be speculation that we had not been native to Earth at all, though further examination would reveal too much similarity to other mammals for that theory to be considered plausible for long.

A new year, a new book list!

1. Apocryphal Tales by Karel Čapek

Apocryphal Tales is a collection of short stories relating to various events in history and literature, as well as a collection of "Would-Be Tales" and a page of "Fables".

The main section, the Apocryphal Tales themselves, are reinterpretations of other stories. For example, The Ten Righteous relates to the story of Soddom and Gomorrah in the Bible, particularly to the part just before the angels visit Soddom, where Abraham negotiates with God to get him to agree to spare the cities if he could find ten righteous people. In the story, Abraham and Sarah are trying to come up with a list of ten righteous people, and each one the other strikes down for various reasons. The Five Loaves is a look at the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, where Jesus is said to have fed a crowd of 5,000 people with just 5 loaves of bread and two fishes, which miraculously multiplied to enough to feed 5,000 people, with twelve basketfulls of leftovers. The story is told from the perspective of a baker, who talks about how, yes, Jesus has some great ideas. All that love your neighbor stuff, giving to the poor, and so on, that's great stuff. He was strongly tempted to follow Jesus. Until he remembers that miracle. What did Jesus have against the bakers, that he's depriving them of a livlihood? Why, if that sort of thing became common, bakers would be out of a job! Lazarus tells the story of Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha learning of Jesus' arrest. Mary insists that they should go to Jerusalem, because she is sure that Jesus is planning some great miracle there. Lazarus wants to go, but ever since he died and Jesus brought him back (or, "that time I was really ill and Jesus healed me" - he's very uneasy talking about his death), he just couldn't bring himself to risking his health, and there's such a nasty wind up there in Jerusalem ...

Not all of the stories are biblical. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a "missing scene" from Hamlet, in which Hamlet, after having put on the play, decides that he really likes acting, and maybe he'll become an actor instead. Or maybe he'll write plays. Then he goes on to consider other possible careers. Maybe he'll become a great orator, rouse the people to great things. But he can't be all of those, so which should he be? Romeo and Juliet is about a young Englishman visiting Verona, who comes across a priest who knew the story firsthand. Only, he learns that Shakespeare took quite a few liberties. Romeo didn't kill Paris, he only wounded him. And he didn't poison himself, he ran away in fear of retaliation. Juliet did take poison, but she didn't die. Instead, she ended up marrying Paris and having 8 children.

The Fables are one-liners attributed to various historical figures. For example, Alexander the Great: My goal is achieved. I have made India a part of Macedonia for all time and Bulletin from Herod's Headquarters: Our regiments have scored a brilliant victory over the infants of Bethlehem

Would-Be Tales are a collection of very-short-stories, from 2-8 pages in length.