Robin > Recent Status Updates

God, this is such a slog! I feel like every time I dive back into it, I'm taking medicine that tastes awful. It's supposedly good for you, but you dread consuming it. Can someone who's read this coach me on how I should look at the book, or how to better appreciate it, etc? Or, if you can't do that, commiseration is also welcome.

He was a good dancer and a good earner, however, and she kissed him in the elevator. Soon they were engaged and they chastely rode a night train to McCook, Nebraska, to visit his aged parents. His father kept a slave whom he was married to.

A decade-plus of marriage had turned him into one of the overly civilized predators you hear about in zoos, the Bengal tiger that forgets how to kill, the lion lazy with depression. To exert attraction, Enid had to be a sill, unbloody carcass.

"I guess there's no accounting for tastes," she said.

"That's true," Denise said. "Although some tastes are better than others."

"That's what everybody thinks," Enid said. "Everybody thinks their taste is the best."

"But most people are wrong," Denise said.

"Everybody's entitled to their own taste," Enid said. "Everybody gets one vote in this country."

"Unfortunately!"

So. Many. Words.

"Words must only be used to make yourself and others happy."

"Of course, there was a time when language was an unparalleled means of communication (...) but not it is simply tearing our world apart. We have begun to abuse language, to bend and stretch as we each see fit, so that no one can understand what anyone else is saying."

Japanese people with neutral smiles, 'just words' and the inability to see what's beyond the words, beautiful lies.

"Maybe the language you all speak was designed, right from the start, for the express purpose of telling lies."

AI decides whether a person is deserving of sympathy.

Language policing in the tower - no comparison allowed.

The inhabitants realize that the outer world is actually the real prison.

"...endless outpouring of words that were as positive-sounding as they were destitute of meaning..."

this is a perfect description of AI