The Blank Manifesto

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

My friend Serdar and I discussed the Poser Manifesto over at a delightful game blog. He got inspired and began typing away on his own manifesto. Inspired, I thought I too should put my thoughts together (not that it didn’t help that I just got a copy of Breton’s “Manifestos of Surrealism”)

So inspired I then thought about what I truly think as a writer and creative, ready to rant as I always do.

Nothing came. If you know me, NOT having something to say is pretty rare. I mean I don’t even have to have anything to say to spew a lot of words.

I wasn’t sure what to say, how to codify my beliefs. Perhaps it’s been a long day. Maybe I’m tired, but I could not articulate my own artistic vision.

This was pretty terrifying to say the least. It felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath me mentally. Whats more, it was surprising as I’ve been and am pretty creative.

I am on a break with my writing, updating book covers and other projects, but I’m still writing here. Under pen names I experiment with art and zines. I’m always swapping ideas with fellow creatives. You think I’d have something to say, right?

It was terrifying and distracting. There was no rant, no manifesto, no vision in my head. I felt something was missing and I just noticed it.

Then I put the pieces together:

I’m taking a break from my regular writing here. Not surprising as I have “punctuations” in my writing – my career phase, my worldbuilding phase (which may indeed have run its course some 22 books later). I’m on hiatus to see what’s next.

I’m also experimenting in various communities with small press, mashup and surrealist art, and more. I’ve got “projects” but every project is about 50% experiment – it’s play.

I am in a creative transition.

A good manifesto usually needs some framework to put it in. Me, I’ve caught myself between spaces,and simply put I’m still building my new framework. I was the Geek Job Guru. Then I was Worldbuilding Guy. Even if a manifesto is not about a specific subject, it helps to come from a specific person and I’m not exactly specific right now.

I’m not missing something right now. There’s a space between, a space where something new can arrive, where someone new can arrive. I’m awaiting the next me.

He’ll doubtlessly write a manifesto.

Just thinking about it gets them one step closer to being born.

Steven Savage

The Alarms Made Us Deaf

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I give up on cautionary Science Fiction.

I was having a discussion with my good friend and author Serdar about cautionary SF. The more we discussed it the more I realized we haven’t listened to it, and have become numb to it.

We’re heading towards not-AI-but-close in control of techbros while everyone has our data. The Forbin Project and assorted Cyberpunk novels warned us, and no one paid attention.

Ecological disaster? Been done. What, am I going to read another book or watch another movie, maybe get depressed at a rewatch of Silent Running? I can just look outside, I mean I’m in California?

Political meltdown? Been done, albeit crappily many times, over and over again. No one listened, and a few people think social collapse means we all wear more leather and ride motorcycles.

People sounded the alarm in fiction over and over again and it’s gotten old. The old messages are still relevant in all the classics anyway. We’ve become numb because everyone said what had to be said, and they keep saying it, and worse not in new ways.

Besides, for a cautionary tale I can just read the news. We’re in a constant life lesson we’re pretty bad at learning.

So you want to save the world, change the world, protect the world. Good, someone has to because too many politicians are ignoring the world burning down and would-be geniuses are creating cell phones for hamsters. You’re probably not doing it with cautionary SF as, well, it didn’t work and the messages are oversaturated. That’s if people even listened as opposed to deciding your Hellish Futurescape is cool.

Maybe try a vision instead.

Give me fiction of a better world and the struggle to get there.

Give me a dream of better, of kinder, of smarter, of what we deserve. Give me something to fire my feelings and my imagination and my soul. Kindle a flame with your words and your images and your dream – and let me share that dream.

Give me a blueprint, something, to get there. A signpost might be all I need, or a compass, or a basic map. Set me off, I’ll figure the specifics on the way there.

Yes, maybe give me caution. But do it in a way that keeps me on the path and heading for that future.

We heard all the alarms. They’re still going off. We can’t hear them very well.

But show me where to walk to a place worth going to, and maybe I’ll hear them again, warnings on my journey to something worth traveling to.

Steven Savage

Climate Change as Investment Opportunity

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As I look at weather predictions, I’m obviously concerned about climate change. I have a bugout plan if it’s necessary to move to avoid severe climate issues. I work in an area (medicine) where climate change affects everything from what patients you see to worries about new diseases to supply change disruptions. Also I’m pretty damn upset with people dying because we were greedy and stupid.

But one thing I think we should be ready for is that people are going to see Fighting Climate Change as an investment opportunity.

Just look at the way money got poured into AI/LLMs in 2023-2024 (when this was written). Take a look at investment fads as people seek the latest thing (and a quick payout). I’ve sometimes wondered when we see the next big economic bubble pop, and other times I wonder if we’ve got so many bubbles popping all the time but don’t notice as the money is already moving on.

That leads me to climate change. Because that’s not just a crisis, but also solving the crisis is going to be seen by some as an opportunity. If you can help people navigate climate change, then someone is probably going to desperately hand you cash – probably a government or ten.

But there’s more! People will want a fast solution to climate change, or at least something that gets them re-elected or brings in cash. That means people will propose fast solutions to climate change problems, and many of those sound high-tech and cool, and that will have many people interested.

Geohacking is going to definitely get attention. Carbon fixation and atmospheric scrubbing is going to get a look. There will also probably be assorted insane plots and suggestions. At least one moron will try to find a way to move entire cities underground or something.

All of these are cool and promise fast (well on some scales) solutions. People love that.

Do I expect this to help climate change? On the whole, no. It’ll just be another investment opportunity, a chance for scammers, and a hope for an easy solution. Climate change is a larger systemic issue and it won’t be solved easily, even if you can safely hack the atmosphere.

Instead I expect it to create scams, mistakes, errors, possibly even disasters. People will smell money, people will see potential stock increases, and that will bring in money and people who want a profit. It will also result in eventual collapse and people moving on to other markets.

It’s my hope that this inevitable scammy, inflate-the-stock type crap is limited and controlled. It might even let us drive real solutions. But there’s going to be all sorts of opportunism in fighting climate change, and we have to be ready for it.

. . . and that is a depressing set of words to write.

Steven Savage