Art Lasts

Art Lasts

Hang out around science fiction authors long enough, and you get the sense that they're all crazy. John Scalzi claims that Donald Trump and the weather conspired to give him writer's block. Patrick Rothfuss and George R. R. Martin have cited similarly temperamental reasons for not finishing their popular series.…
October 28, 20209 Comments
Alt Revolt out of Control

Alt Revolt out of Control

A recurring theme since the sci fi genre began has been the machine revolt. Whether you date that beginning to Frankenstein or "Rossum's Universal Robots", science fiction has always conjectured that one day, man's inventions would get fed up with us and push back. This sci fi conceit is, perhaps…
October 15, 202023 Comments
Web Comics Autopsy: Penny Arcade

Web Comics Autopsy: Penny Arcade

Pop culture trends come in cycles. A new property shows up on the scene, gains traction, and explodes in popularity. Entropy always gets a vote, though, and the IP holders inevitably turn to milking the brand. A consequent decline in quality follows, and the brand--sometimes the whole genre--goes moribund. The…
September 23, 202020 Comments
You Can’t Save Everyone

You Can’t Save Everyone

 A reader shares this conversation which proves how deep the Pop Cult conditioning goes.The context of this particular discussion was the NFL. You're just as likely to hear the exact same script from Pop Cultists who are still addicted to Big Two comics, Hollywood Movies, and corporate top 40 music.Note…
September 10, 202031 Comments
Confessors Not Martyrs

Confessors Not Martyrs

If anyone still doubts my advice to stay away from protests or who insist we "Need more heroes like Kyle Rittenhouse," I refer you to the latest search term popularity data from Google Trends. Those who are convinced we should send more young men into the lions' den in order to…
September 4, 20206 Comments

Art Lasts

Hang out around science fiction authors long enough, and you get the sense that they're all crazy. John Scalzi claims that Donald Trump and the weather conspired to give him writer's block. Patrick Rothfuss and George R. R. Martin have cited similarly temperamental reasons for not finishing their popular series.…
August 6, 202016 Comments
Manmade Institutions

Manmade Institutions

Wherein the trade journal Marketing Science brings us further proof of the Pop Cult. H/t @Swordo9 on Tiwtter: The marketers who've pushed the concept of brand evangelism weren't just using a figure of speech. Man's innate religious impulse isn't being snuffed out. It's being captured and perverted by international corporations. Fitzsimons,…
August 5, 20208 Comments
It’s Not the Economy, Stupid

It’s Not the Economy, Stupid

It's about time someone noticed that Conservatives' exclusive fixation on economic arguments has lost them the culture war. Daniel Bendele writes: If the culture degrades even as the stock market climbs, there must be something else that we are missing?  If the rising tide is lifting all the boats, why…
August 4, 202011 Comments
Christ Is King

Christ Is King

America is still a Christian country--at least sentimentally--as a poll at Unz indicates. The two real shockers in these results are Christians' relatively low favorability numbers among Hispanics and their surprisingly high rating with Democrats. If more than two-thirds of Dems are honestly positive toward Christianity, it would mean that…
July 27, 202024 Comments
America Judgment

When Did America Die?

Each day, more people wake up to the fact that, "How can we save America?" is a pointless question. America is already a corpse. Many of us have finally noticed that it's stopped twitching. A better question is, "When did America die?" Was it last year, when Trump signed the…
July 24, 202021 Comments