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Notes -
So what are you reading? I just finished The Children of Men by P.D. James, review below. Also working on Way of Kings, Capital, and some Kant.
Didn't realize that the author of this was THE P.D. James, of thriller writing fame. I guess there is something about British authors who abbreviate there first and middle names and pulling surprisingly deep science fiction commentary that has stood the test of time (thinking of you E.M. Forster).
The Children of Men is a book about a world with ultra-low fertility, in other words, an extreme version of a world that we already live in. I had a friend's birthday party at the park a couple weeks ago (I'm getting close to 30 unfortunately), and I noticed that out of the 20 or so couples there, only one had a child. And I think this is becoming increasingly true over the whole entire world. Many of the downstream aspects of this fact also seem to be shared between James' novel and reality: the prevalence of pet parents, the lack of interest in the future of society (but a fixation on the past), and an obsession with health and safety at all costs.
Beyond the social commentary, the actual plot of the novel is a little lackluster. It centers on an Oxford Professor of History, Theo, who happens to be the cousin of the dictator of England. Theo lives a pretty unremarkable and utterly selfish life (even before the "Omega" where most men suddenly become infertile), until he becomes involved with a rebel group that wants to enact some minor changes in the governmental system, but more importantly, is sheltering a woman who happens to be pregnant. Theo's time with this group changes his inner and outer lives almost completely: it's amazing what hope for the future does to an individual, although I was left wondering at the end how much would really change in England after the birth of this child.
Having children is no basis for a moral system in of itself (this was Chesterton's critique of H.G. Wells), but it sure as hell makes constructing a society a hell of a lot easier. Unfortunately I think our world is headed to a future more similar to what James envisioned in the 1990s. People simply aren't having children: I'm guilty of this too: it's not like I'm close to being married even. And that, I think, means that this society isn't very long for this world.
Moving this from the friday fun thread:
I'm hooked on this Russian blog of (mostly funny) stories of a nuclear submarine officer. Y'all should put it through Grok or Deepseek or whatever, it might still be funny in machine translation.
This is amazing, thank you! Already dying on the Men’s Day cake.
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