Ken MacLeod: The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and ke...

What if capitalism is unsustainable, and socialism is impossible?

Ken MacLeod

socialism what-if impossible

Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear ********* weapons.

Ken MacLeod

kings country children

I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already.

Ken MacLeod

character men war

I'm a long-term optimist, and I don't think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.

Ken MacLeod

optimistic long thinking

All life is a struggle for existence. Why should it cease to be a struggle if it spreads among the stars?

Ken MacLeod

stars struggle life-is

Naive' is not a word I associate with the Southern Rule. Superstitious, perhaps, traditional, yes, maddeningly set in their way, certainly but not naive." "I meant you are naive. They must have a hidden motive." "This is why I have no politics," said Darvin. "I can't think in those terms.

Ken MacLeod

southern way thinking

It had long been established in the Civil Worlds that public business was to be transparent, and personal business opaque; but it was as well recognised that the two would always have a turbulent interface, and that the clique, the caucus, and the conspiracy were as ineradicable features of civility as the council or the committee.

Ken MacLeod

opaque two long

"Anyway... I find what you write interesting."

Ken MacLeod

writing people interesting

Of all the sciences, astronomy was the one the superstitious liked least.

Ken MacLeod

superstitious astronomy

For us scientists, on the other wing, life is not quite so simple. Because we learn the unknown. Unlike, hah-hah, our esteemed friends the philosophers, who learn the unknowable.

Ken MacLeod

philosopher simple wings

Falling in love indicated that your genes were complementary to those of the loved one. It told you nothing about when your personalities and sexualities were compatible.

Ken MacLeod

loved-ones falling-in-love personality

Change the problem by changing your mind.

Ken MacLeod

changing-your-mind problem mind

The idea of determinism combined with complete human responsibility struck me as very hard to reconcile with an idea of justice, let alone mercy.

Ken MacLeod

responsibility justice ideas

Science fiction made me aware of how big and strange the universe was, leaving aside the whole question of aliens.

Ken MacLeod

leaving strange fiction

The world has become one big grassy knoll, crawling with lone gunmen who think they're the Warren Commission.

Ken MacLeod

think-big world thinking

I don't really believe in the Devil, but if the Devil is the Father of Lies, then he certainly invented the Internet.

Ken MacLeod

believe father lying

The real world is far too complex and unpredictable to make something like the idea of humanity controlling its own evolution or engineering itself - well, I wouldn't say impossible but it should be approached with a degree of caution.

Ken MacLeod

engineering real ideas

The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing.