Just-So Stories

The purpose of this post isn’t to complain about Grokpedia. Look, I wont’ deny there’s a mini rant on that, because it unwittingly called me stupid and WORSE it called me OLD which at my age is VERY sensitive. It also utterly failed to get real cultural differences. However the point is where Grok learned this nonsense, which is US. And also how this nonsense causes problems and poisons minds.

So — does a little dance — rant first, explanation after.

My husband, who for some reason believes annoying me is as good as exercise by raising my heart rate, went trolling Grokpedia, which I’ll grant it, is less biased than Wikipedia. What it is is a fabulist of the first order, creating “facts” by taking things out of context and weaving “just so” stories around them.

For instance, it confidently assures all and sundry that my biggest influences were Ursula Le Guin, Joan Vinge (!) and a third woman whose name I can’t even remember now, and whom I might in fact never have read, just due to the vagaries of when books were available.

Okay, fine, all of you who are groaning and saying “Ursula Le Guin is responsible for you being a science fiction writer, woman!” are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. But not the way Grok intended. Look, annoying someone so much they become writers is not the same as influencing how they write. None of that makes any sense.

Do I know where Grok got that bullshit? Well, yes, yes, I do. You see, it made up a little just-so story to go with it. According to it, my brother had me read these women so that I knew it was okay for women to write science fiction, and to encourage my ambition to write which was not a profession for women “under the Salazar regime.”

PEOPLE. That gigantic groan that just made the entire Western US tremble was not the ghost of dinosaurs, screaming from their fossil formations. That was in fact me, myself and I.

How and where do I start? That story above is so wrong it’s not even wrong. It’s a parallel reality where the moon is made of green cheese and Indy plays the violin in an orchestra.

First, my brother was NOT trying to encourage me to read science fiction. (Much less write it. My family had long accepted that I would at some point write, but they expected I would, like the rest of the family, write POETRY, which is an acceptable hobby for everyone in Portugal. The country doesn’t have a large enough population to sustain FICTION writing as a profession, so hobby was what they expected.) He was in fact — poor man — trying to hide science fiction books from me as at my age (the person who loaned him books reminded me recently — he found me on FB — that I was 9 not 11 as I’ve been ASSUMING) he thought they’d confuse me. (They did. But not more than history books or adventures in other continents did. It was glorious.) Also, because some of them were… uh…. spicy. (I didn’t get most of the spice. Like kids don’t.)

When he failed at this endeavor, he tried to control the books I got my greedy little mitts on, by not bringing the spicy/weirder ones home. By then it was much too late because I’d started taking the train to the city and READING SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS BY STANDING UP IN THE BOOK STORE NEAR THE SPINNER RACK UNTIL CHASED OUT. Then coming back the next day.

By the time I was twelve, I was blowing my birthday money on science fiction unless mom caught me first and spent it on useless stuff like shoes. By the time I was fourteen and engaged in various low-paying but paying gigs, my brother gave up and went halves on me on books, when we were both semi-broke. (Yes, pooling your resources to buy the equivalent of a $5 book is pathetic. Thou shalt most certainly DEAL.)

But…. did he then try to encourage me to read female science fiction authors?

Uh….. so, this is where Grok thinks I’m stupid and need to see someone like me doing something before I try it. This is the kind of bizarre affliction I never even UNDERSTOOD. People, I did things because I was bored. I often tried things I didn’t think were possible at all. Because they looked interesting.

Does the woman born in a small rural village in Portugal who came to the US and became a fiction writer in her THIRD LANGUAGE look to you like someone who sits around waiting to be “represented” in an endeavor so she knows it’s societally approved of and she can do it?

In fact, ladies, gentlemen and small pterodactyls, do I look like I ever gave a fig about whether anything I wanted to do, from whom I married to how I dress, to my hobbies, passions or profession, was something society — ANY SOCIETY — approved of?

Look, if I’d done what was approved of in Portugal when I was a kid, I’d be much better at crochet (my one womanly gift. Okay, crosstitch too, though that might fall under therapy against anxiety), I’d be passionately interested in telenovelas (they were radio novelas, but trust me, same same), I’d engage in a lot of celebrity gossip. Oh, and I’d have MAYBE because I was “smart” gone through ninth grade, then got out to do something societally approved of like secretary or clerk, until I married someone who lived not very far away.

This had nothing to do with Salazar (more on that later) in any way, shape or purple nothing. It has to do with Portuguese culture. The EU has made a lot of it go underground and it’s not spoken of openly, but I’d be shocked if women are considered as smart as men. And a bookish woman is an abomination. AND a woman who is interested in geeky stuff will find a way to disguise it, because she’ll be under suspicion of not being quite straight. Now in my time, before heavy indoctrination by the EU, this was more so. With bells on. I ROUTINELY got told by people including family members and teachers that I was in no way as smart as a boy and would only hurt myself trying to be. (People like my brother stopped saying it after a while. My dad never did. And mom advised me to PRETEND not to be as smart as boys because otherwise I’d only invite trouble.) I didn’t care probably because of a touch of the tisms, but also because I WAS BORED and just wanted to do things that looked interesting.

This gets to where Grok is calling me old. People, I was SIX when Salazar died. I was 11 when his successor was toppled by the international socialists. (Some other AI thought I approved of the Salazar regime because I compared it to FDR’s. THAT was a leap. I did compare it to FDR’s (without the minimal holding back FDR had due to our system of government) because he cribbed FDR’s speeches, even, for crying out loud. In no way did I mean to imply that made it non national-socialist or good. As far as I’m concerned both Salazar and FDR were national socialists and to hell with them.) This doesn’t mean I approved of the international socialists that followed, on account of they sold out millions of people in the Portuguese African colonies to the USSR and their Cuban mercenaries, and filled mass graves (As communists always do) and also made my teenage life a misery, due to my tendency to say exactly what I think to teachers who are spewing indoctrination. The later is a minor issue compared to the other crap they were doing, but very close and personal.

Now do I know where Grok got all this load of crap? Oh, yeah. I know. Because during SP I pointed out I’m tired of people trying to claim that women weren’t in science fiction till yesterday, and pointed out I knew these female writers from early on when I WAS A KID. Which it then confabulated with my complaints about sexism while I was growing up (to the extent I noticed it, which to be fair, wasn’t much, it bothered me. I tended to bowl over any discouragement or even shouts to stop, but it bothered me) and with the fact my brother introduced me to SF/F (more or less inadvertently) and wove it into this just so tale. The Salazar thing is probably because the idiots on the left attribute all sexism to right-wing (which Salazar wasn’t anymore than FDR was, not AMERICAN right wing. Though granted European right wing) regimes and to the fact some bright bulb thought I’d come here to “escape” when the national socialist regime fell. At eleven. By myself. (What can I say. I’m precocious. I headed to the beach, got some duck-shaped water-wings, and floated all the way across the Atlantic. Needs must, because I STILL can’t swim.)

(Note, I’d be proud and happy if Grok reported this as the way I came to America. Mostly because it’s absurd.)

Before I get to the point beyond the rant: the first woman writer that had ANY impact on my reading (I don’t know how much impact she had on my writing, if any) was Anne McCaffrey, because I was of an age (late teens early twenties) when she was published in Portugal to fall headlong into Pern. Before that I read women like I read men or small purple dinosaurs. I didn’t care, so long as it was words on the page. Heck, I preferred science fiction, but I read everything else too.

In fact, if you’re going to be keeping score, the female writers I read most in my early to late teens were Pearl S. Buck and Agatha Christie, one slowly giving way to the other, neither in science fiction and only Agatha Christie rivaling the spaceship on the cover books.

My favorite authors for the largest part of my growing up were, to no one’s surprise, Robert A. Heinlein, followed at a slight trailing distance by Simak (look, deal) and Bradbury, and at a longer loping distance by Pol Anderson and Phil Dick. Further back and mostly falling under “I’ll read their book if available” were Van Vogt, Asimov and a dozen people I can’t call to mind RIGHT NOW because coffee still hasn’t had any noticeable effect, for some reason. (A very busy weekend is my guess at the reason.)

Biggest influences? Robert A. Heinlein. And as an adult, a bunch of other people, including Pratchett. (And Pournelle.) My reading has always been wide and varied and I steal story telling tricks from everyone, including real history.

Right, now the relevant part of this: Why did Grok create this bizarre just-so story out of a reality that didn’t even vaguely corresponds to its story? Because Grok learned confabulation from humans. When faced with dispersed and unclear facts, it constructs a just-so story. As humans do.

So, you know, Portuguese born science fiction writer mentioned her brother introduced her to science fiction, and she mentions these female writers. Also, the other side says she ran here when Salazar’s regime fell. AHA! this was why her brother introduced her to female writers.

People do this ALL THE TIME. Continuously. With relish (and sometimes mustard.) Not just the left, but every human does it. About things that are either obscure, or which they don’t want to spend months researching. We get hold of three or four disparate facts and run with them into a “just so story” that explains EVERYTHING.

This is how we get people assuring us that say Neanderthals had no sense of direction at all. Now I know that’s partly from brain structures, but as older daughter in law pointed out, they colonized all of Europe for a long time, and surely they couldn’t have moved around as a vast pack, afraid to lose the rest of the tribe. They had to go hunting and then come home after all.

This is how Marija Gimbutas invented an entirely female paradise before men dastardly invented patriarchy. The entire story falls to pieces if you poke it and not just because she confused bull’s heads with uteri, but because it has no internal psychological sense (like, if a matriarchal society was so perfect, why did men overthrow it? It’s not like they were a separate species.) Sure all of it is based on shards, misinterpreted figures and a lot of wishful thinking. BUT it’s a just so story and it made people who wanted to believe in mythical women who were communal, giving, and not in the slightest human, very happy.

This is how, of course, Marx constructed his theory which had nothing to do with real economics, and was 99% the wishful thinking of a grifter consumed by envy.

This is how Antonio Gramsci retconned Marxism to apply to people who could tan and who, unlike those traitors of the working class who chose country over class in WWI were NATURAL communist, and therefore the future.

None of it makes sense, if you think it applies to real humans. Real humans don’t think a certain way because they tan a certain color.

BUT they’re just so stories and because humans like just so stories, they eat them up with a spoon. Each of these bits of nonsense confuse a lot of people and make them believe horrible things and commit murder and worse (yes, there is worse) under the grip of just so stories.

90% or sometimes more of what I do here at ATH is poking holes in just-so stories that are being pushed as psy-ops to make you act in ways that aren’t good for you (or the world, or anyone.)

Every time you’re presented with a story, be it for why you shouldn’t allow data centers, why AI is going to take all your jobs, why the socialists will win forever, why we’re all gonna DIIIIIIIE, etc. etc. etc. ask yourself “How would this story play if happened to REAL humans who are actual individuals and don’t act in prescribed ways?” I mean I won’t request that you imagine everyone in the story is like me, because that’s highly unlikely. But I hate to tell you how much even one person with a touch of the tisms and no idea of HOW he/she’s supposed to act, let alone any intention of obeying can screw up a just-so story. And my brothers and sisters in tism are everywhere in the world and everywhen in history.

The left routinely makes the mistake of assuming people are vast groups of widgets. The right does too, until someone points out it makes no sense.

Because humans and clankers have a lot in common when it comes to Just-So stories. And all of it p*sses me off. Which must be my justification for this rant.

That and telling you to do what my mom complained I always did: When a story is too perfect, for the love of heaven, poke holes in it. The life you save might be your own. The liberty you save might be all of ours.

ARGH. UPDATE: I forgot to mention I’m conducting this blog’s fundraiser till the 15th (which will be fun since it’s a day after surgery. Never mind).

DAY SIX OF ACCORDING TO HOYT’S ANNUAL FUNDRAISER.

(Note there wasn’t one for Christmas last year, as NML did well enough I skipped the thing that makes me uncomfortable.)

Jerry Pournelle was the first person to insist what I do here has value and I should be paid. I ignored him because it makes me uncomfortable. However, as this blog and responsibilities associated with it have grown, my family thinks I owe it to them to allow it to pay at least a fraction of what a job that eats this much of time would.

So, if you find value in the blog, please contribute commensurately, understanding this has cost me not just in time and worry (not so long ago credible worry I’d be debanked or worse) but also in exposure to some very nasty people for both me and my entire family. (As I pointed out sometime ago when people were complaining that Glenn Reynolds doesn’t “need” money and shouldn’t fundraise, every blogger, large or small, to the right of Lenin has paid a price for what he or she does. And some of it is monetary. The rest is honestly probably ultimately medical. Fundraising can’t compensate for this, but it at least helps our families cope.)

If you wish to donate: There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

IF YOU WANT THE FULL SPIEL AND EXPLANATION IT’S HERE: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty