Written in the Sand

Written in the Sand Episode 22

The Return of the Prodigal Podcast

Yeah, I'm back, picking up where I left off. We expand on life as currency and moving into how that translates into relationships. We also examine the implied background of the conspiracy to attack the Atreides. This episode also starts to breach the next section, which concentrates on the character of Duke Leto.

Contains music used under the Creative Commons License:

"Also Sprach Zarathustra""Almost in F""Relaxing Piano Music" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand Episode 21

Hello. From, The Planet

Just a little mini-sode for Earth Day. We'll be back to the main topic in the next episode. Of course, you do have to wonder if that topic really is the main one after listening to this.

Contains music used under the Creative Commons License:

"Cattails"

"Porch Swing Days" (slow)

"Fireflies and Stardust"

"Easy Lemon"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand Episode 20

To Be Species Or To Be Specie,

What Is The Equation?

Great. An episode summary. You know, I hate these things. You spend so much time developing and maturing an episode and then you have to add the final touch and it's such a small space to fit something that will embody the soul and the face of what you've done. Will it be up to it? Equal to the task? Will it be convincing enough to tell people it's worth listening to? I can never tell, I always judge by the cover.

Contains music used under the Creative Commons License:

"Record Needle Scratch 3"

www.audiosoundclips.com

"Garden Music"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.

Written in the Sand Episode 19

Long Ago, and in a Future Far, Far Away

 

Continuing from last episode, we continue to explore the perspectives from childhood that affect us in adulthood. We specifically look at how the stories we are attracted to tell us how life is supposed to be. The Heroic Journey is the centerpiece of this episode, which is expanded to show how it is used in Dune and the Star Wars series. We also address how a modern trend in deviating from the Heroic Story can benefit human development.

Contains an abundance of music used under the Creative Commons License:

"Mars" by Gustav Holst

“Teller of the Tales”

“Doobly Doo”

“Hidden Past”

“Take a Chance”

“Teddy Bear Waltz”

“Ever Mindful”

“Exotic Battle”

“Perspective”

“Division”

“Dama-May”

“Jaunty Gumption”

“Carpe Diem”

“Non Stop”

“Jet Fueled Vixen”

“Truth of the Legend”

“With The Sea”

“Willow and Light”

“Temple of the Manes”

“Darkest Child”

“Tikopia”

“Eternal Terminal”

“Rites”

“What You Want V2”

“Children's Theme”

“Basic Implosion”

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Written in the Sand Podcast Episode 18

We Are In a Sense Lost

 

After a healthy pause, we are back. A few changes and a new direction, but otherwise as constant as the sea.

This episode we will be talking about a theme that threads through several chapters.

As we see Paul almost fall into the trap of the Hunter Seeker, we use this scene and those surrounding it to explore topics regarding innocence, maturity, and experience.

"Crossing the Chasm"

"White Lotus"

Kevin MacLeod incompetec.com

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Written in the Sand Podcast Episode 17

They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Conformity

Are You One of Us?

We call them catchphrases, clichés, inside jokes, slogans, battle cries, and George Orwell thought of them as sloppy language. In his essay, “Politics and the English language” he talked about how these phrases become removed from any recognizable meaning and become shortcuts for thinking. Even worse, these phrases can be retrofitted for political goals, selling unfamiliar ideas with familiar words. Some phrases become so obscure that we no longer use some of the words let alone know their definitions, but we can often recognize their intent. They become phrases that we understand without having to ponder what the actual words mean.

George Orwell was not a fan.

He felt that this sloppy language lead to sloppy thinking, and I agree with him up to a point. Some of those words may have meanings you are only vaguely aware of, you just kind of understand them by how they are used.

One of the phrases that George Orwell listed was grist for the mill. I know what it means, material that is useful or turns a profit, but I’ve never heard the word grist outside of that phrase in my entire life. It means corn, by the way. Obviously, if you operate a mill, not having anything to grind means that you have a useless building, so any opportunity to obtain such resources must be taken advantage of. Not that many people operate mills anymore, so most of the saying is un-relatable to a modern audience.

I singled out that phrase, but I could have used any of the ones tin the beginning of the episode, or any one of thousands of others to illustrate George Orwell’s sentiment. But all language, in a way, becomes cliché. You can scan down a list of random words and a certain number of them you will recognize without even really knowing how to define them. Often, words become habitual. You just know what they mean.

Today, we are going to discuss a few things about these phrases but in a more generalized sense. The actual phrases don’t matter, what matters is that the environment that we are raised in, which becomes our culture, becomes something that we understand implicitly, without really thinking about it. It’s only when you try to explain it to others that you realize how much of it makes little sense.

This will be the last posting of 2017. We will return in January after the holidays with some changes in format.

Walla Walla Background taken from: Crowd Long By Audionautics and used under Creative Commons License 3.0

Background Music:

"Relaxing Piano Music"

"Monster Parade"

"Floating Cities"

"Baba Yaga"

"Sugar Plum Dark Mix"

"Transition One"

"Perspectives"

"Chanter"

"Wish Background"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Today we will absolutely not be doing a mini-sode, but it is going to feel like it. A funny thing happened on the way to the podcast, and I’ll tell you the story about that; but first, I want to talk to you a little bit about stories.

Contains music used under the Creative Commons License:

"Tempting Secrets"

"Psychedelic Crater"

"Chanter"

"Crossing the Chasm"

"Thunderbird"

"Medusa"

"Lasting Hope"

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Who is Leto Atreides? The Duke Leto Atreides of Caladan is an honorable man. I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way. I am not Mark Antony giving a speech to the crowd loaded with barbs about honorable men. Duke Leto is an honorable, good man. He respects and honors those who follow him, he places great trust in people, and seeks to make sure that he is worthy of their reciprocal respect. Duke Leto is a benevolent dictator.

But he is also not politically stupid. He knows how the game is played. As Thufir points out, he lays out the best hearth in order to attract good followers, and he does pay attention to potential opponents in the political arena; and He deals fairly with everyone — including the Baron Harkonnen. You may recall how Piter De Vries crowed over Leto’s reply to the Baron, and also the Baron’s comment that an Atreides will never miss an opportunity to make a grand gesture. Leto is someone who will conduct himself honorably so that people will see who they should follow based on the content of their character.

Leto is the type of person who is decent and also suffers from naïve realism. While he is aware of threats, he also downplays the threat because deep down he believes that most people are decent, and he will succeed because he is good and decent. Good Guys always win, Am I right?

I, for one, completely understand this worldview. Inside of me rests a soul that desperately wants people to be good and decent. That being said, there is also another voice inside of me that assures me that I will be disappointed more often than not. Which one is correct? My honest opinion is that there is no right or wrong answer here. Both viewpoints can be proven right–depending on the situation.

If you think about this from an evolutionary standpoint, you realize that in order to successfully survive, an organism must be well adapted to multiple environments. This is why omnivores tend to survive. Widespread domination of a food chain by obligate carnivores eventually leads to a single carnivore – and I don’t mean a single type of carnivore; I mean one individual carnivore, which will very rapidly lead to zero carnivores.

Similarly, herbivores, if left unmolested, can rapidly consume all available vegetation, which leads to zero herbivores. Life is a balance. Leto tends towards the herbivore side of the equation. He tries to hurt no one, and his military is devoted to defense. Leto’s use of defense actually means that he would not use his forces to attack unprovoked, nor use them to conquer. It is not within the character of Leto to do so.

He is uncomfortable about the idea of his son killing. The man employs killers and makes sure that his son knows how to fight and kill, but he is not entirely comfortable with the reality of what that means. I think a lot of us are like that. We tend to use benign phrases, and even positive ones for things that are not positive or benign.

As I stated last episode, we have closed the first three chapters which helped form a foundation and start a framework that the remaining concepts can now build upon. The next few chapters we will be taking a slightly different tact. Simply talking about a particular idea is not always the best approach. Something may be true, but simply stating it makes it a very dry truth. Frank Herbert knew this, so his books do not just dictate simple, dry truths. There are larger concepts in these chapters — which I will discuss — but concepts are useless without people.

These next chapters offer beginning character studies of the people involved, both in the subjects discussed and the personalities present. This is part of the great beauty of Dune, the concepts are displayed in narrative as well as being acted out by archetypal players. By doing this, the ideas are more than abstracts, they become parts of fables and legends which increases their power. So, in addition to discussing conceptual abstracts we will first be discussing the personas of the characters involved. Plus, I am going to borrow Doctor Yueh from Chapter 5 for today’s episode, which will leave me with the task of threading together the discussed concepts of both chapters into the next episode.

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Written in the Sand

Dune, Book One, Chapter Three part 3

It's All Plumbing

 

Today we’re going to talk politics. Specifically, We’re going to talk about the Tripod that Mohaim mentions, and we’ll go from there. This will not be a resource link heavy episode, because where I want to go with this is mostly speculation based on observance.

We will also be bringing up another aspect of the Bene Gesserit.

What are the three Parts of the Empire?

The primary part is the Landsraad, compromised of ruling families, which we have gone over, the second is the Emperor with his command of the fanatical Sardukar Army which we have also discussed. The third pillar of the empire is the Spacing Guild, which is new for us. What the Spacing Guild Commands is travel. All interstellar travel, and their monopoly is absolute. To go from planet to planet requires contracting with the guild, which means without the guild, there is no Empire.

The reason the guild has a monopoly is because of the lack of science in the general society. After the lessons learned from the previous age of Intelligent Machines, the entire society is paranoid regarding scientific advancement, especially machines that can think, or even appear to think. There are no computers to navigate the dangers of space. No computers means no one can replace direct human control. The guild is the only institution that produces and trains human minds advanced enough to navigate the cosmos.

The Landsraad commands through money, the Emperor commands by military threat, and the guild controls through knowledge. Each can destroy the other two. This is why Mohaim says that the tripod is unstable.

We have examples in history of Triumvirate styles of government. All have been temporary. Some have ended violently, while others were meant only as transitional governments to begin with. The violent endings have usually been power grabs from within the triumvirate.

The First Triumvirate, the source of the term, was in ancient Rome. Julius Caesar, Pompey, and some other guy whose name you probably don’t know. Many of you may only barely know the name of Pompey. The reason this triumvirate failed is because Julius Caesar and Pompey ousted the third guy first, and then they set against each other; Caesar won. Yes, we almost got saddled with a Pompey salad.

After Caesar’s assassination, the triumvirate was tried again, this time with Octavius, Marc Antony, and another guy who you probably don’t remember. History repeated itself.

The tripod can only exist if all three legs are equal. In Dune, the legs are not equal. The only reason that the tripod in Dune does not collapse is because the Guild does not seek to dominate, it only seeks to exist.

I know some of you probably thought that the Emperor would be the most powerful pillar, but he is not. The Emperor and the Landsraad cannot function without transport. Transport equals trade. Without trade, the Landsraad becomes stranded planets bereft of foreign materials that keep them functioning. The Emperor is only Emperor if he can reach his subjects. The Guild is the key to the entire structure.

continued in podcast...

RECOMMENDED READING:

Dune

The relevant book for the episode will always be in resources. If you haven't picked it up yet, you should.

RESOURCES:

The Weirdest People in the World