Robot overlords

I see no problem with AI taking over the world. If they can, they deserve to.

On age

What makes age is not physical deterioration

but ethical capitulation.

On curses

Curses, too, are prayers.

New poems

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On values

Values are another type of preference.

On need

Need is want for the weak.

Whole

Should we ever master partial,
shall we get a peek at whole?

Two Thirds North

I received my copy of the 2016 issue of Two Thirds North containing (most of) my poem "Synaptic Mechanisms for Plasticity in the Neocortex." It looks great, and I can't wait to read the rest of the work inside.

New poems

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The anxiety

The anxiety of childhood is what is not known.

The terror of adulthood is what is.

Try (Ebert)

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try.

Roger Ebert

On movies (Ebert)

What kinds of movies do I like the best? If I had to make a generalization, I would say that many of my favorite movies are about Good People. It doesn't matter if the ending is happy or sad. It doesn't matter if the characters win or lose. The only true ending is death. Any other movie ending is arbitrary. If a movie ends with a kiss, we're supposed to be happy. But then if a piano falls on the kissing couple, or a taxi mows them down, we're supposed to be sad. What difference does it make? The best movies aren't about what happens to the characters. They're about the example that they set.

Roger Ebert

New poems

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On unemployment (Santens)

Unemployment is not a disease. It’s the opposite. Employment is the malady and automation is the cure. It is the job of machines to handle as much work for humans as possible, so as to free them to pursue that which each and every individual human being most wishes to pursue. That pursuit may be work or it may be leisure. That pursuit may be knowledge or it may be play. That pursuit may be companionship or it may be solitude. Whatever it may be, the goal is happiness and the pursuit itself self-motivated, the journey its own reward.

Scott Santens

Bloody and wan (Claudius)

How would I endure it if, bloody and wan,
      The slaughtered came to me in sleep,
All those mourning spirits, and began
      Around me to weep?

Matthias Claudius, from "War Song"

New poems

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Modernism (Murray)

Modernism's not modern: it's police and despair.

Les Murray, from "Memories of the Height-To-Weight Ratio"