TBJ


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EsperandoAGodot
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Post by EsperandoAGodot »

It's Heidegger-ian, right?

Why would they not...um...read...fuck...
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Post by SandChigger »

(Because they usually...um...read shit? ;) )
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Post by EsperandoAGodot »

Mreh...I just can't help but express my exasperation. If you're writing about people terrified of machines, why would you not immediately read work on machine/human interaction as a basis?

Y'know...Samuel Butler for example?
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Post by SandChigger »

:lol:

Samuel Butler ... he was Serena's grandsire, right? :wink:
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Post by Omphalos »

SandChigger wrote::lol:

Samuel Butler ... he was Serena's grandsire, right? :wink:
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Post by SandChigger »

:lol:

(I wonder if anyone else remembers and gets that one. ;) )
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Post by SandRider »

reminder to myself here mainly -

ran across a passage in Dreamer of Dune where Brian briefly
lays out Frank's idea of the Butlerian Jihad (which is extremely
similar to ours, go figure)

another point that made me immediately think that Keith is
responsible for all the bullshit .... and that Brian knows better
but is just so weak-minded and timid....
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Post by Freakzilla »

SandRider wrote:reminder to myself here mainly -

ran across a passage in Dreamer of Dune where Brian briefly
lays out Frank's idea of the Butlerian Jihad (which is extremely
similar to ours, go figure)
:shock: I'd REALLY like to see that!
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Post by SandRider »

awright, damn, lemme go roll my wheelchair and drag the IV-drip
machine down the hallway to the study where I THINK my bags
got dropped off yesterday when I got home and dig thru there and
find the book and flip thru it and see if I can locate the passage and
then type in here by hand for you, because, after all, I exist only
to serve ....
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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Post by Freakzilla »

SandRider wrote:awright, damn, lemme go roll my wheelchair and drag the IV-drip
machine down the hallway to the study where I THINK my bags
got dropped off yesterday when I got home and dig thru there and
find the book and flip thru it and see if I can locate the passage and
then type in here by hand for you, because, after all, I exist only
to serve ....
:roll:

I wasn't suggesting you violate doctor's orders or anything!
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Post by SandRider »

hyperbole, Freak.
The book is here on my desk.
badly indexed, as well - all the name-droppings, and titles of
Frank's books - not indexed by concepts, such as the
Butlerian Jihad

I'm not finding it quickly - it may have been in the last quarter
of the book after the only pen I had in the room ran dry from
all the mark-ups of the first 3/4ths.

I don't remember in what context it was - it was very brief, but
simply said the Jihad was a religious movement against the increasing
control of men's lives thru machines - not by machines,
which was the point that stuck with me. It shows to me that Brian,
atleast whenever he wrote that portion of the book, which was apparently
broken up, knew full well what Frank had intended.

there's a wealth of crazy shit in this book.
but I think it's main flaw, for me, will be credibility. I keep thinking
"Brian Herbert alledges..." or "According to Brian Herbert ..."
which is not a good place for a Son to be when writing about his Father.

I gave a quick read in the hospital on heavy drugs - just flipped thru it
again, looking at what I had marked - I'll get back around to it - maybe
others who have read it as well can throw in on a "Dreamer of Dune" thread - if there's not one buried around here already ....
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Post by Freakzilla »

SandRider wrote:I don't remember in what context it was - it was very brief, but
simply said the Jihad was a religious movement against the increasing
control of men's lives thru machines - not by machines,
which was the point that stuck with me. It shows to me that Brian,
atleast whenever he wrote that portion of the book, which was apparently
broken up, knew full well what Frank had intended.
That would be worth creating sock puppet just to post on DN... unless someone else could be me too it.

:wink:

I'd love to see Byron try to rationalize that.
there's a wealth of crazy shit in this book.
but I think it's main flaw, for me, will be credibility. I keep thinking
"Brian Herbert alledges..." or "According to Brian Herbert ..."
which is not a good place for a Son to be when writing about his Father.
I really don't care how good a father FH was I'm sure Brian's POV is quite jaded.

Discussing FH's vision of TBJ over wheaties confirming the OH view however is fucking GOLD!
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Post by Freakzilla »

Will they say "Dreamer of Dune" is an in-universe document?

:lol:
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Post by inhuien »

^^^ You Betcha!!
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Post by SandChigger »

The index in this case is of no use whatsoever.

But I did find mention of the Jihad on p.517 (TOR 2003 pbk):
BH in DoD wrote:Dad spoke of how well the first round of treatments had gone in Wisconsin, and of how much he looked forward to returning to work on "Dune 7." The new book was barely under way when he had to leave it. He said we might work on a Dune book together one day—perhaps a Dune "prequel" idea I had suggested to him, set in the mythical time of the Butlerian Jihad. He said my writing had come a long way.
(He'd no doubt have something different to say if he were around today.)

It's been a while again since I've looked through Dreamer...so I'd forgotten a bit just how badly written it is. (OK...that Hugo nomination...it was a pity-party, right? HAD to be.) Damn...he fucking bounces all over the place.

Anyway, I don't see any mention of the philosophical/religious aspects yet. Will keep looking.... 'Rider, you got anything? ;)
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Post by Mr. Teg »

SandChigger wrote:The index in this case is of no use whatsoever.

But I did find mention of the Jihad on p.517 (TOR 2003 pbk):
BH in DoD wrote:Dad spoke of how well the first round of treatments had gone in Wisconsin, and of how much he looked forward to returning to work on "Dune 7." The new book was barely under way when he had to leave it. He said we might work on a Dune book together one day—perhaps a Dune "prequel" idea I had suggested to him, set in the mythical time of the Butlerian Jihad. He said my writing had come a long way.
(He'd no doubt have something different to say if he were around today.)

For a biography that doesn't explain anything at all, but sounds like a marketing pitch used during a book signing.

Perhaps Kevin could fill in the gaps above about the Butlerian book Mcneilly and Frank were working on :roll:

But my favorite response to this sort of thing is the example Freak posted earlier.

When you kids says, "Hey Dad! Check this flip out."
CRASH...SPLAT
"Um, great job, son! Keep going" says Dad with a loving smile.
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Re: TBJ

Post by Tycho »

I suspect the best parallel may be slavery and the American Civil War, but inverted, sorta. Many peoples would have turned themselves over to machine-rule (because they were told it would solve all problems and create a fair society), but the end results were often far from social justice. Some people would have started a movement to reject machine-rule on principle, and what followed would be a conflict between those who want rid of machines, and the powerful factions who benefited from their rule. It would be part ideological but part economic (see: the economic tension between free-states and slave-states). By the end of it so many would be dead that the economic reasons would be forgotten by history, replaced by ideological taboo. The slightest hint of machines fulfilling the functions of humans would not be tolerated. History would remember a considerably more radicalized aversion to machines than what actually went down at the time. Anyone suggesting the revival of thinking-machines would be looked upon like a neo-Nazi or a Ku Klux Klan member. Any state engaging in thinking-machine revival would get the Kosovo treatment.
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Re: TBJ

Post by SandRider »

would you like to expound on what you mean by "machine-rule" ?
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Re: TBJ

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I think he means more like machine governance. Based on how dumb all the voters are, I could just imagine them chumping at the bit to vote for some machines that would theoretically make all the right decisions.

I don't think that really conflicts with what FH wrote about the Jihad being about dumping the things that make us less human (make decisions for us, do the work for us) nor the bit about the Jihad being against the machine mindset (sorry for the terrible paraphrasing, my memory is just weak today).

I could see a war being initiated by nations that were against machine governance against the people who voted for it. That would still fit into FH's bit about people with machines against those without.

If it's meant in that way it's a very non-terminator scenario.
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Re: TBJ

Post by Tycho »

Yes, machine governance to 'theoretically make all the right decisions.'

Even if the machines had made all the right decisions and no one had abused the system or made populations into puppets, it still wouldn't be hunkydory, and I think ghat was Leto II's deeper point. Humans need to grasp their own destiny, put food on their own table, invent, enterprise, 'be their own men,' not sit back on a space beech and let someone/something else attend to all the worries.
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Re: TBJ

Post by SandRider »

yeah, you missed the point -

do you mean "ruled by men with machines" or "ruled by machines" ?

also: Thing, you meant "chomping at the bit" - a saying from an antsy horse that
wants to get moving and run, and is "chomping" his bit and rearing his head; I think originally
a horse-racing term - "in the chute and chomping at the bit" ....


[edit]
and Tyke, I think you meant "beach" ....

a "beech" is a tree ....

unless you're Cheech Marin saying "SON-ov-a-BEECH !!"
[/edit]
[edit2]
couldn't not ...
[/edit2]
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Re: TBJ

Post by Tycho »

the general idea is that many of the offices of government could be handled by tireless AI, making for more efficient governance free from 'human error' (aka 'special interests'). but this made populations too placated, so that conquerors or conspirators found it easier to take over then have the machine-government do their bidding (allocate resources in their favour, etc)

i suppose another interpretation is that with the ever forward march of technology, the discrepancy grew too great between the 'technical aristocracy' who understood the machines and the broader (ignorant) population who were completely dependent upon them but were unable exert any control. I think Asimov has a similar idea in Foundation about 'Tech-men' or something. Basically livelihood no longer depended on tilling the land etc. but was so greatly but dangerously dependent on technology that enslavement of the masses became a possibility. But I personally find this interpretation unlikely, Herbert wouldn't have bought such an economically naive idea
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Re: TBJ

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

SandRider wrote: also: Thing, you meant "chomping at the bit" - a saying from an antsy horse that
wants to get moving and run, and is "chomping" his bit and rearing his head; I think originally
a horse-racing term - "in the chute and chomping at the bit" ....
Funny typo!
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Post by Asharu »

I do want them to someday experience fully the mental discomfort and embarassment of the realization of just how bad their books are and how much harm they have done to Dune.
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Re: TBJ

Post by georgiedenbro »

I know this subject may have been beaten to death, but here's a conclusive passage from Appendix II of Dune:
Dune Appendix II wrote:Then came the Butlerian Jihad -- two generations of chaos. The god of
machine-logic was overthrown
among the masses and a new concept was raised:
"Man may not be replaced."
Those two generations of violence were a thalamic pause for all humankind.
Men looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with
that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition.
Hesitantly, the leaders of religions whose followers had spilled the blood
of billions
began meeting to exchange views. It was a move encouraged by the
Spacing Guild, which was beginning to build its monopoly over all interstellar
travel, and by the Bene Gesserit who were banding the sorceresses.
How can it get any more clear than this? I have read the arguments about the Dune Glossary concerning whether the prequels adhere to its definition of the BJ or not. I think they do not, but the glossary is just vague enough that if readers insisted on ignoring the tone and insinuation of the text they might think it meant a war against machine overlords.

But this passage is 100% clear and not ambiguous. It states, in plain text, "the god of machine-logic was overthrown." In English this sentence means that the god previously worshipped was "machine-logic", and that this god was overthrown. MACHINE-LOGIC. Not machines. The fact that machines use machine-logic is irrelevant to the understanding of this sentence, as humans may use machine-logic as readily as machines can. Not only that, systematized structures such as laws and bureaucracy can also employ machine-logic, as Paul is keen to point out in DM. And even if one wanted to twist this sentence into being a bizarre poetical mention of machine overlords, then it would have to have read "godS of machine-logic." In the next underlined passage we have "men looked at their gods and their rituals." This cannot mean gods as machine overlords because "gods" is paired with "rituals", which means that their belief in the gods was tied up with belief in their rituals, meaning that their religions and ways of life were ritualistic and fixed instead of living and vital. Think of the Museum Fremen and you have an analogy to this. If you were to switch out "gods" with "machine overlords" the sentence would become pure nonsense and lose all meaning. Then it says that the belief in the gods and rituals "both were filled with that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition." This means that the ritualistic and rigid life that men led in belief of his rigid gods was circumscribed with a sense of fear, rather than ambition; decay, instead of growth. This is in the same sense as the accusation Paul levels against the Guild in Dune:
Dune wrote:And he thought then about the Guild -- the force that had specialized for so
long that it had become a parasite, unable to exist independently of the life
upon which it fed. They had never dared grasp the sword . . . and now they could
not grasp it. They might have taken Arrakis when they realized the error of
specializing on the melange awareness-spectrum narcotic for their navigators.
They could have done this, lived their glorious day and died. Instead, they'd
existed from moment to moment, hoping the seas in which they swam might produce
a new host when the old one died.
The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal
decision: they'd chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward
into stagnation.
The final underlined part of the Appendix text is clear as well: "[R]eligions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions[.]" This means: 1) Billions of humans were killed by other humans, i.e. the victors. Humans were warring against humans. Perhaps someone would desperately argue that the machine overlords might have employed human slaves to fight for them (even though why would they bother?), to which I say: 2) The text plainly states that the jihad was waged not by soldiers, rebels or even 'the good guys', but by religions and their followers. This means that the war had a religious, and not secular, cause, and that it was perhaps not even initiated at all by a-religious or agnostic people (we may even suspect, but not prove, that it was against atheists and agnostics that the war was waged). There is also a corollary to this: Since machines do not have a religion, a human being cannot, by definition, have a religious war against a machine. A human can try to destroy a machine, or to defeat a machine, but since a machine has no 'values' one cannot take a moral stance against its values and wage religious war on it. This is the definition of what a religious war is: A conflict over a difference in religious values or views. A machine does not have these, ergo a machine cannot be a participant in a religious war, and can only participate in a basic power struggle (whether it's with arms or through data).

I take these comments to be direct and necessary conclusions drawn from the text of Appendix II, and not particularly 'my opinion' in any strict sense. This is basic text analysis and comprehension. Perhaps certain authors would benefit from writing less and reading more? Hiking may be a wonderful pastime, but it cannot be a replacement for listening.
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