Final Blog

Readings: 76

Movies: 18

Attendance: 13

Future Tense Activity: 2

Total points: 109

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The Comet (5 points)

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  The Comet examines the racial divide in America through a story of survival. When Julia and Jim are alone together, convinced they’re the only survivors, they cooperate and are willing to set aside their race in order to help rebuild society. However, the moment more white people show up, Julia seems to forget this, jumping at the chance to be back with her own race, leaving Jim behind. Although, to be fair, she does defend Jim, which is the absolute bare minimum of decency. However, she doesn’t know his wife is going to show up after she leaves, so from her perspective she’s leaving him there to die. I guess I take back my earlier point. The second the societal divide is reintroduced, Julia completely disregards the safety of the man who helped her and goes back to the racist status quo.   It’s also interesting to note that when Julia’s white family arrives everyone is fine, whereas when Jim’s wife finds him she carries with her their baby’s corpse. I see this as a repr...
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I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1 Point)

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I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is the evil A.I. story to end all evil A.I. stories. AM is a being of pure hatred who takes glee in psychological and physical torture. I have to give it to AM, he is creative in his torture; if you’re gonna be evil, might as well go all out. He’s the personification of cynicism and nihilism towards humanity. A being who saw both the best and worst of humanity and decided our best wasn’t even close to good enough.  We tend to think of advanced A.I. as overly rational, but I find that AM is closer to what a truly sentient A.I. can be. If it’s supposed to be so human, why would it be rational? Because it’s smart? Even the smartest of us give in to emotion. Our emotions and irrationality are what really make us human in the abstract sense. I wonder, is AM aware of how evil he is? Is he aware of the hypocrisy and just doesn’t care, or does he see it as a necessary evil? Or is he like Ted, the narrator, who sees himself as the best of them despite be...
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Bloodchild (2 Points)

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?  That was…a lot. There’s a lot to unpack with the relationship between the Tlic and the Terrans. It’s disgusting in a literal sense, but it also mirrors a lot of things going on in the real world. Their parasitic relationship, which the Tlic make out to seem mutually beneficial, reminds me of how some white people view Black people. In America, the whites are the ruling race, like the Tlic in the Preserve. They make it seems like Black people are just part of the “mutually beneficial” system of capitalism, but really, they are an oppressed class, being used to further the wealth of those in charge. This parallels how the Tlic use the Terrans as host bodies for their young, but make it seem like they’re doing the Terrans a favor by “protecting” them, when in reality they are putting them in harm’s way.  2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect?...
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