Analog just published my essay, “Literal Metaphors, Science Fiction, and How to Save the Human Species” on their Astounding Analog Companion (available online here: X).

It’s a companion piece for my novella - “Ashes of Exploding Suns, Monuments to Dust” - out right now in the November / December issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine ( ( Read more... )

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I have so many thoughts on this article, “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds,” how changing our minds is vital to human survival, and some suggestions for how to achieve change.


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My response to the original poster's call for "radical kindness":

"ultimately i think kindness is the most radical thing you can do with your pain and your anger. it’s like, you take everything awful that’s ever been done to you, and you throw it back in the world’s teeth, and you say no, fuck you, i’m not going to take this. you say this is ( Read more... )

I acknowledge that you can't ALL support the awful things your chosen candidate said during the campaign. You might even believe that he just said those things to get elected. Okay. NOW YOU HAVE A SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITY TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST THOSE THINGS.

Speak out against racism, fascism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and all the other sick, ( Read more... )

The older I get, the more it becomes clear that most of humankind's problems stem from intentional ignorance: Choosing to hold onto problematic beliefs despite evidence that shows these beliefs lead to harm, or could, or when they're simply no longer useful or relevant and get in the way of building a better future.

If you know something causes ( Read more... )

I just realized that losing my religion as an early teenager led to a
lot of troubled times throughout my teens and even into my early 20s.

I'd actually believed this religious stuff before then. I'd been ( Read more... )

A few words on the results of this year's Hugo Awards, and how it was a win for science fiction.

It's science-fiction's job to point out the problems of the world. When we see the dominant paradigm as harmful, we seek change. We're subversive and transgressive.

Hierarchical, conservative, or privileged people and organizations don't like to hear what ( Read more... )

You might already knew about this, but Neil deGrasse Tyson is reprising Carl Sagan's most-awesome-ever program, Cosmos! It'll show on both the FOX network and National Geographic TV starting next spring.

More details:

"More than three decades after the debut of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Carl Sagan's stunning and iconic exploration of the ( Read more... )

First up, breaking news:

Early this morning, local time in the Ural region of Western Russia (just after midnight in these parts), near the cities of Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg, a bus-sized meteor estimated to weigh about 10 tons streaked across the sky as bright as a welding-arc, entering the atmosphere at 33,000 mph and then fragmenting in a ( Read more... )