As I continue to trawl through earlier blog posts I see that one of my 2012 posts followed a one week sojourn in Iceland. Iceland’s traditional narratives and mythologies draw on the activities of a pantheon of heroes, one of whom is the trickster god Loki. In that post, and subsequent publications, I referenced Lewis…More
Tag Archives: trickster
AI sycophancy
Everyone loves a compliment. Courtesy, politeness and good manners entered recently into the AI discourse via two threads. First is the apparent cost of non-essential words. In discussing the costs associated with the widespread adoption of conversational AI Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, remarked lightheartedly that “please” and “thank you” typed into a prompt increase…More
The treehouse
A treehouse provides both prospect and refuge. It’s built to position its residents some distance above the ground. A treehouse is organic and improvised, structured to oblige its particular and uncertain superstructure — the tree. The structure is usually additive. It looks as though it could extend further into the tree canopy, and even connect…More
The lion and the jackal
Jackals are omnivores. They eat plants and hunt small prey. Jackals normally forage and hunt singly or in pairs, but will form larger alliances to scavenge a carcass. By stealth, they will steal from a lion. A lion, three jackals and a dead warthog A female lion catches a warthog in the early morning. Warthogs…More
Champions of the Anthropocene
Modernism championed an image of the human as rational, in control, and improving. Now we human beings realise we are responsible for irreversible alterations to land, climate, and organic life on a geological scale. So we live in the Anthropocene, and those committed to its correction, rehabilitation and remaking are Anthropoceneans. Many geographers are counted in their number — but…More
Cute and cuddly
Who could miss the palpable cuteness of puppies and kittens on YouTube, and their mass produced surrogates in cartoons, video games, on logos, as branded accessories and as soft toys. The word “cute” is an abbreviation of “acute,” meaning clever, keen-witted, sharp, and shrewd, according to the OED. In her extensive exploration of cute as a viable contemporary aesthetic category,…More
How the Internet kills curiosity
NASA successfully landed its latest robotic vehicle on Mars 6 August, 2012, which is also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I found that fact while browsing the Internet on the theme of curiosity. The coincidence works best if you go with Greenwich Mean Time rather than Pacific Daylight Time … another Internet-discovered factlet.…More
Unearthing the trickster function in Icelandic myth
Loki is tied in an underground cave in the company of a serpent who tortures him with venom. Loki’s occasional writhing causes earthquakes. (139 characters. I’ve just made a tweet out of a saga.) According to an authoritative source, the god Loki plays a central role in the exchange of goods (von Schnurbein, 2000). Loki…More
Why cartoons have animals
Why do adults and children like to see animals as characters in fictional stories and cartoons, especially when stories about animals are so confusing? Everyone knows that Micky Mouse (a mouse) lives in a house and has a pet Pluto (a dog) and a friend Goofy (a dog that talks). I recently caught up with…More
LOL Security reproduces the trickster function
According to its manifesto, LulzSec is (or perhaps was) an “organization” committed to online hacking because it finds it entertaining: “You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and we find it funny to cause it. We release personal data so that equally evil people can entertain us with what they do with it.” LulzSec seem…More