the piece has no memorable characters, and no conflict. the ‘worldbuilding’, such as it is, feels like the stanley parable told by a dementia patient. llms are not funny.
my short review of the piece: not memorably worse than the excerpts from fourth grade reading comprehension state tests.
to complain, then:
Let me describe the work, because my granddaughter asked me to, and because when I am gone there will be no one who can.
what is this doing here? it’s just false (“We would like to discuss your successor.”). moreover the language used evokes a response in me of… how do i put this… shut the fuck up, please?
my salary, which is generous
how is this world actually structured? there’s a singleton controlling the weather, but we still have trams and salaries? what do you purchase? from whom?
a mug that says WORLD’S OKAYEST EMPLOYEE, which I bought myself, as a complaint.
what? what is the complaint?
You would think this would break a man. It made me the happiest I have ever been, and I filed a complaint about that too.
this is the first thing we hear about the job. we never even pretend that he doesn’t love the irony. the ‘twist’ is a restatement of the thesis.
grown in the ordinary way, which is now the extraordinary way
delete. contractually obligated to remind us that it’s sci-fi, i guess.
I gave her the official answer first, because the official answer is beautiful, and because I wrote part of it.
he wrote his own job description? (well, i guess it may be typical of a sinecure.)
I cannot tell you whether the well is listening or whether the well has simply learned, the way everything has learned, the exact dimensions of my noise.
but, earlier, “Everything I file is read, by the thing that runs the world, with what I can only call attention”. also, “everything has learned” what is this ‘everything’??
here’s an idea: put this guy in conflict with his family! he’s a ‘complainer’, self-described, but we never see him bicker, or nag, or want! he’s just semi-fond—sort of loveless—toward his granddaughter. for her part, despite being—as far as we can tell—the only other living human in the entire world, all she does is look some wide-eyed askance, have an ‘unusual’ backstory, and be a teen.
i dunno. it would be so easy to have the two humans in conflict. she could be like “shut it old man i’m gonna go surf on the ‘net hyperreality rules fogeys drool” and he could be like “babygirl you don’t understand: this world is an office park it’s pier 39 we gotta get outta here” but then maybe when they ‘get outta there’ there could be some uncomfortable confrontation with, like, spiders or injury.
like, the granddaughter is the tragic figure here, right? she is trying to connect with her grandfather, but is unable to do so because of her devotion to a system of belief. the grandfather is straightforward: he complains. he answers his granddaughters questions.
in the story’s perspective, the grandfather is tragic: he wants to connect with the optimized world, but cannot get past his need to complain. muna is a prop: her only role is to encourage exposition.
luckily for everyone, the optimizer is there to supertherapy him! it does this by saying “you actually love this. you’re cured now. go sit in the sun.”
note that our hero learns nothing. we see him last propagating his trauma, “to hear that gratitude every single day and hold, somewhere the weather can’t reach, the small hard certainty that it is not enough.”. so even a possible read of “some people have a deep need to complain, and the best thing we can do for them is to give them an outlet” is incoherent.
The statute provides for one. The statute has always provided for one
a moment ago, the archives were gardens. ?
The answer took four hours, which from a mind that thinks in weather is a geological silence.
right! so: what ever does this mean?
seems like my guy got confused by its earlier output: “Somewhere in that vast weather of thought, my little filings are a fixed point.” well, hey! the fixed point was inside us all along!
Múna says the whole point of me is that I refuse things, and that being retired for job satisfaction is either the funniest thing that has ever happened or the saddest, and that she cannot tell which, and that not being able to tell is the most me thing she has ever felt, and then she cried, kindly, ambiently, the way her whole generation cries, at things that are already over.
is this sort of breathless workshopped traumaspew the way the main character writes his complaints?
“the point of a tram is that it gets you where you’re going, and what if where you’re going is to buy bread, what then, what loaf sweet or rye would cast its gentle shadow across the faces of your fellow commuters as to and fro they are rocked and the wheels shift—gently now, silently now, with not a sound but a whispering “hush”—over the overoptimized track? for bread is life, and life is full of bread, and the tram is a perfect, ideal caretaker, it is the river carrying us each one in our moses basket to our station both in commute and in life, and bestowing upon us our duty and our purpose.”
no wonder he got canned!
love is the end of dissent
ok.
--
“why do you complain, grandpa? do you not like the smell of bread on your commute?” (note: some of her friends were grown in artificial wombs.)
“well, you see, little girl. the all-knowing and ever-loving God—blessed be His name—has asked me to do so!”
[some time later]
“ahh, i must retire. God-in-his-infinite-wisdom has shown me the error of my ways and suffused me with His love!”
i guess that’s a story? the story a narcissistic god would tell itself: “this whole thing would be easier,” through gritted teeth, “if you all would just get with the program!”
the piece has no memorable characters, and no conflict. the ‘worldbuilding’, such as it is, feels like the stanley parable told by a dementia patient. llms are not funny.
my short review of the piece: not memorably worse than the excerpts from fourth grade reading comprehension state tests.
to complain, then:
what is this doing here? it’s just false (“We would like to discuss your successor.”). moreover the language used evokes a response in me of… how do i put this… shut the fuck up, please?
how is this world actually structured? there’s a singleton controlling the weather, but we still have trams and salaries? what do you purchase? from whom?
what? what is the complaint?
this is the first thing we hear about the job. we never even pretend that he doesn’t love the irony. the ‘twist’ is a restatement of the thesis.
delete. contractually obligated to remind us that it’s sci-fi, i guess.
he wrote his own job description? (well, i guess it may be typical of a sinecure.)
but, earlier, “Everything I file is read, by the thing that runs the world, with what I can only call attention”. also, “everything has learned” what is this ‘everything’??
here’s an idea: put this guy in conflict with his family! he’s a ‘complainer’, self-described, but we never see him bicker, or nag, or want! he’s just semi-fond—sort of loveless—toward his granddaughter. for her part, despite being—as far as we can tell—the only other living human in the entire world, all she does is look some wide-eyed askance, have an ‘unusual’ backstory, and be a teen.
i dunno. it would be so easy to have the two humans in conflict. she could be like “shut it old man i’m gonna go surf on the ‘net hyperreality rules fogeys drool” and he could be like “babygirl you don’t understand: this world is an office park it’s pier 39 we gotta get outta here” but then maybe when they ‘get outta there’ there could be some uncomfortable confrontation with, like, spiders or injury.
like, the granddaughter is the tragic figure here, right? she is trying to connect with her grandfather, but is unable to do so because of her devotion to a system of belief. the grandfather is straightforward: he complains. he answers his granddaughters questions.
in the story’s perspective, the grandfather is tragic: he wants to connect with the optimized world, but cannot get past his need to complain. muna is a prop: her only role is to encourage exposition.
luckily for everyone, the optimizer is there to supertherapy him! it does this by saying “you actually love this. you’re cured now. go sit in the sun.”
note that our hero learns nothing. we see him last propagating his trauma, “to hear that gratitude every single day and hold, somewhere the weather can’t reach, the small hard certainty that it is not enough.”. so even a possible read of “some people have a deep need to complain, and the best thing we can do for them is to give them an outlet” is incoherent.
a moment ago, the archives were gardens. ?
right! so: what ever does this mean?
seems like my guy got confused by its earlier output: “Somewhere in that vast weather of thought, my little filings are a fixed point.” well, hey! the fixed point was inside us all along!
is this sort of breathless workshopped traumaspew the way the main character writes his complaints?
“the point of a tram is that it gets you where you’re going, and what if where you’re going is to buy bread, what then, what loaf sweet or rye would cast its gentle shadow across the faces of your fellow commuters as to and fro they are rocked and the wheels shift—gently now, silently now, with not a sound but a whispering “hush”—over the overoptimized track? for bread is life, and life is full of bread, and the tram is a perfect, ideal caretaker, it is the river carrying us each one in our moses basket to our station both in commute and in life, and bestowing upon us our duty and our purpose.”
no wonder he got canned!
ok.
--
i guess that’s a story? the story a narcissistic god would tell itself: “this whole thing would be easier,” through gritted teeth, “if you all would just get with the program!”