Does this mammoth work of philosophizing autobiography “matter,” in the sense of containing crucial survival information? I’m not sure. In fact, the opposite may be true. The ideas and observations in this these “novels,” like pointing out the emperor has no clothes, may well reduce one’s chance of survival. Nonetheless, it’s a significant work of storytelling, and I’m here to grapple with the implications.

Folks, meet The Moon Under Water’s forthcoming co-host, the philosopher, Deke Gould.

Deke is an instructor and devoted life-long student of philosophy. His areas of research specialization include the epistemology and metaphysics of logic, as well as the philosophy of technology, but his personal interests are very wide-ranging. He is currently teaching courses in philosophy of science and 20th century analytic philosophy of platonism (with a lower-case ‘p’). When he’s not talking, reading, or lecturing about philosophy, he enjoys reading science fiction and sharing experimental electronic music with friends at Rozz-Tox, where he also regularly organizes public philosophy events.

Kel starts the annual meeting off by asking how to go viral on social media. The fellas use his recent near-viral comment and its 245 angry replies as workshop fodder. Tune in for the invaluable answer! Steve follows this up with a SHOCKING announcement. The Moon Under Water will never be the same again.

A story about good intentions leading to disastrous outcomes. Also, stay tuned to the end to find out the verboten word George Saunders refused to read aloud on a New Yorker podcast.

The fellas are continuing with the writers-who-Daniels-knows-personally run with two bangers by C. Sneed. One’s full-length and deep and thought-provoking and touching, all about lousy parents and lame siblings and how annoying it is to be the one competent person on the fricken planet. Do I have to do everything!? Yes, you do. The other is a flash and is over in a flash and jeez just read it (but maybe wait until you land if you’re on an airplane).

https://anotherchicagomagazine.net/2023/06/15/maam-by-christine-sneed/

https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2026/05/12/tax-day/

Today’s Story That Matters is more a genre of story retold than any particular story. You can start with Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humans, who naturally made a mess of things. Frankenstein’s subtitle is “the Modern Prometheus,” and we know all about the dangers of “playing God” from that constantly retold story. Nowadays, stories of AIs gone rogue abound, and have been for years. I particularly like Ex Machina, where a mad scientist intentionally creates and unleashes what he assumes will be humankind’s successor, a really smart and ruthless robot. I just finished book two of a Sci-Fi series called Hyperion, about a distant future where people have become dependent upon technology they don’t understand and can’t control, leaving them totally vulnerable to a federation of emancipated AIs who just may not have their human creator’s best interests in mind. The lesson is simple and we know it well: careful with your inventions as they might might come back and bite you in the ass.

What interests me more than the lesson is what we’ve done with it. People certainly haven’t stopped scientific and technological advancement. We keep making new stuff, and every time, we pay in surprising ways. It seems a law of nature that with every benefit comes an unintended consequence that tips the balance back toward suffering. Just in the last few generations we made nuclear bombs, industrial food, the internet, smart phones, and now LLMs that are pretty much smarter than 99% of us. Do we ignore our stories that supposedly matter? I don’t think we do. I think we take our Prometheus stories to heart. It’s just that we don’t know about all the ways we’ve stifled innovation. At least, we don’t think about it much. But we have restrained ourselves in many areas.

We edged up to the brink with nuclear weapons, and then the global leaders got together and made some real moves to step back. The nukes are still there, but they just don’t feel as scary as they were at the start. In general, we have left a lot of military weapons on the table, from biological to self replicating nanobots, to fully autonomous lethal weapons. We haven’t pursued genetic engineering of humans to the degree that we could, not yet at least. We don’t have the kinds of biological toys we see in the movie Bladerunner, or the organ harvesting clones described in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. All to say, things could be worse, if not for the stories we keep telling, the warnings we can’t quite ignore, as hard as we try.

The fellas are down to clown in this can’t-miss episode about a kick ass story.

Read the story then listen to some world class bloviation. https://sandjournal.com/clown-school-by-rachel-swearingen/

Today’s Story That Matters takes us way back to ancient Greece. By comparing the older Iliad to the later Odyssey, we see how stories evolve along with the societies they represent. What it took to survive in the world of the Iliad is not the same as that of the Odyssey. In short, the Iliad is a story where might makes right, where martial skills rule the day. In the Odyssey, a world run by trade and diplomacy, charm, imagination, and cleverness are far better survival traits.