As somebody outside of religions (thank you both parents, probably the greatest gift one can give to one's kids - freedom of faith and self determination, something almost impossible as adult if indoctrinated young), these kind of discussions are funny to me. Why? They are present in every corner of the world, every religion. And all you need is to take few steps back and stop taking everything literally, trying to find some universal life guidance in bronze age texts. Not that its not there completely, some things are universal, but so are half the self-help books for example or literally…
The films don't really give themselves a need to explain the mentats beyond "they're good at maths". I do think they could have done better at showing that mentats are capable of huge feats of computation and planning and take the place of advanced computers, and that wouldn't need exposition. The "answer a numerical question with unnecessary decimal places" trope was worn when Commander Data did it for the millionth time. Moreover, it was something that seemed like a simple multiplication: something normal humans who are good at mental arithmetic can do. Having Thufir do the eye thing to…
> Dune, a desert planet, was a monocosm. Which planet of the Dune series? I guess you're talking about Arrakis, and is exactly what a monicosm is. Herbert is one of the best world builder ever. He got the world of Arrakis by looking at real world environments and then added layers on top of them, the melange, the sandworms, what kind of people could live there, what kind of society and most importantly cults and religion could spawn. "Herbert wanted to write a novel on the desire in Western societies for messiahs—someone on a white horse who comes to fix the sorry mess we’re in. He…
I get what you're saying, but I wouldn't cut it just like that. I mean, you could and it would kind of be valid, but hear me out. In my opinion, SF is really about thought experiments, psychological stress to the extreme and what if's. One could imagine a story with a swords and sorcery and still keep it like that. There's also that whole science aspect of SF which I don't think has to be held up to literally. Fantasy, in contrast, is more goal oriented where there's a clear hero's journey line to it. Whether more stories in fantasy wield a sword could lean distinction like you've mentioned.…
Alternative hypothesis: something set 21,000 years (edited - well spotted!) into the future is going to be as impossible to imagine for us as today's world was for Jules Vernes. As such gothic madness might be a more realistic interpretation. A lot of the criticism misses the mark. I can try and find alternative explanations. The "outdated" computers? The Butlerian Jihad caused that future world not to build anything more complicated than a light switch. The unique worlds, monochromatic and with their odd uniqueness? Visible signalling of these being different cultures that survived by…
> I also cannot help but see plot holes. For example, why does the emperor not take complete control of the spice production? To expand on what the sibling poster said, the Emperor cannot take complete control of spice production - the Guild would never allow it. He has what he thinks is necessary and sufficient control. Remember that it was the Emperor who gave stewardship of the planet to the Atreides, in collaboration with his lackeys, the Harkonnens, and that the Emperor and his allies had amassed huge stockpiles of spice while planning to intentionally disrupt spice production and…
IAAP. This has nothing to do with the uncertainty principle, because your intepretation of the popular rendering of the uncertainty principle ("observing something changes it") is wrong. I grant that nearly everyone, including many physicists, think your interpretation is correct, but it is in fact wrong. The uncertainty principle even holds when the measurement procedure could not possible transfer enough energy to the system being measured to change the outcome of the measurement. It is a fundamental property of the mathematics describing quantum phenomena, that does not just come about…
People lie. People project onto others what they wish they had themselves. Advice not followed. Choices they wish they'd made. Past circumstances as opposed to current circumstances. There's no getting around making your own decisions. And living with them. TANSTAAFL. Google (Wikipedia) it. Maybe read some Heinlein. Realize that while Heinlein may have some interesting things to say, he too was writing fiction. Physical health is the foundation of everything else. Don't compromise it lightly. From Frank Herbert's "Dune": "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the…
You schedule someone (or hire a service) to provide 24/7 coverage. If someone is required to respond outside of normal business hours, compensating PTO is provided. Actually, I'd be strongly partial to that time off being granted at a multiple scale, much as overtime and double-overtime are rated. If I'm called on to respond outside of core hours (and am not normally scheduled for those hours), I get 1.5x time compensation. If it's between midnight and 8am, weekends, or holidays, it's 2x. From Frank Herbert's Dune, there's the Fremen desert water compensation principle of 10x price --…
There will always be nigh-altruistic people, but I'm talking more in tiers than absolute: 1. How many people can and do become experts? 2. How many of those experts interact at all outside of their career? Even just posting about work rants on social media? 3. Of 2), how many take the time to author any sort of content on the side? From an unknown blog to a conference talk to podcasts, contributing to open source,, etc. we can break this down further to those who do it outside of the company sponsoring them to do so. 4. Of 3), how many go on to extensively share knowledge? In things like…