@Edent what's so bad about <div> ... or: Why do you want to avoid them?

[sborrill@justfollow.me.uk]

@Edent Got it for Christmas last year and was really pleasantly surprised. It was whimsy rather than out-and-out surrealism. I see he's written two more, but not I've read them yet (nor received them this year!)

[kubikpixel@chaos.social]

@Eicky @jbjrkng @Edent nope, Session is not secure then it is pseudo encryptet, don't trust there lies 👇

»Don’t Use Session (Signal Fork)«
https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/

#signal #session #chat #notSecure #fork

[kay@mastodon.nz]

@Edent Like many imperial space operas the time setting relies on technology to colonise planetary systems beyond those we currently have.

As political constructs though I'm reminded of the Spanish colonisation of parts of America as well as English colonisation of many other nations. Colonisation and exploitation of indigenous resources isn't kind whether we see it in Dune or the Avatar setting of Pandora or in West Papua and Papua New Guinea. Or Middle Eastern nations like Palestine. Or ...

[jonquark@mastodon.org.uk]

@Edent There was a "Butlerian Jihad" against Thinking Machines which is why some classes of tech seem undeveloped.

[apostateenglishman@mastodon.world]

@Edent It's in the far, far future long after there was a Terminator-style takeover by "thinking machines" (the idea for Skynet possibly came from Dune). Because humanity almost went extinct, it became a grave sin to make a machine in the "likeness of a man's mind", which is why there's no robots in the Dune universe, and highly-trained humans (Mentats) do many of the tasks - such as complex logical analysis and data processing - we today leave to computers.

[apostateenglishman@mastodon.world]

@Kay @Edent All true, but on the other hand, the Fremen are not depicted as primitive, but have a sophisticated culture and their own advanced technology which they use to wage war against the colonisers. They also tolerated House Atreides precisely because they did not displace the Fremen or interfere in their business (although the Bene Gesserit very much did). Also, Herbert sought to subvert the White Saviour myth by making Paul an anti-hero, arguably even an outright villain in the 2nd book.

[kay@mastodon.nz]

@ApostateEnglishman @Edent Many indigenous people have sophisticated understandings of their world and manage natural resources without destroying worlds.

[brownhamer@mastodon.nl]

@Edent "Dune is set in the distant future ..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)

[fazalmajid@social.vivaldi.net]

@Edent it’s set around AD 14,000 or so

[morix@loci.onl]

@Edent
Cool tiny scuttle friend with good taste in shells?

[apostateenglishman@mastodon.world]

@Kay @Edent Oh I agree 100%! I was only pointing out that Dune doesn't bear comparison to movies such as Avatar, which are fully invested in the colonialist, White Saviour narrative that Herbert set out to deconstruct. We see Paul ruthlessly exploit the Fremen in order to avenge the death of his family, and the whole story is a dark parable about the dangers of trusting Messianic authority figures. If faithful to the book, this should become even more apparent in Villeneuve's Part 3.

[ainali@social.coop]

@Edent I am not deep into the lore, and have only read it once, but my interpretation of it is that it is an alternate universe rather than in this universe's timeline.

[eicky@mastodon.social]

@kubikpixel @jbjrkng @Edent thanks for the info, how about Briar?

[kubikpixel@chaos.social]

@Eicky @jbjrkng @Edent i am convinced of @briar and use it with people with whom i really want to communicate privately. unfortunately, relatively very few people still use this.

[kay@mastodon.nz]

@ApostateEnglishman @Edent Having seen Avatar films 1 and 2 but not yet 3, I disagree on labelling them as colonialist, White Saviour narrative.

The invaders from Earth are definitely shown as villains, and the indigenous blue or green people of the land and water of Pandora as its protectors.

[eastmad@blacktwitter.io]

@Edent Is this an insane plan to avoid contact with an LLM?

[eastmad@blacktwitter.io]

@Edent Lunch!

[paul_j@hachyderm.io]

@Edent I read it as a teenager (back in the early 80's. I seem to remember at the time there were only three books in the series, but now there are more. I rated it then, and would consider reading it again.

[naturemc@mastodon.online]

@Edent Long ago that I read it - but as every great work of SciFi his story was influenced by problems of his time and even history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)#Origins

"Herbert hoped it would be seen as an "environmental awareness handbook" - an important topic in the 1960s (compare to Ursula K. Le Guin).
And was it free of his political ideas of his time? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert#Political_views

[aerion@nerdculture.de]

@phrawzty

+1 for Fedilab. I've tried other ones, but I kept coming back to Fedilab, so it's been permanent for a good few years now. It also supports scheduled posts and boosts.

@Edent @apps