A new substack about AI: Ludd. "Citizen Journalism on AI, Publishing, and the new Tech Landscape". First post is about Repeater Books, Israel and AI: second is about AI and climate change.
TechTakes
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I don't think people get how reactionary the captain vimes books are. look at what's happening in them. in plain english, you have a cop and his band of good apples + adorably bad apples saving the ass of a dictator again and again, because sometimes you just need a clever steady hand in charge. Pratchett was informed by liberal humanist values, and there's plenty of great stuff about tolerance in there. but the foundation of any vimes novel is an institutionalist urge to bootlicking. it just has to be the right boot
I think Pratchett understood that, despite people romanticizing revolution, revolutions often end up opening the door to something as bad or worse. Especially in a place like Discworld.
In Night Watch:
“Vimes/Keel tells Ned Coates not to put his trust in revolutions "They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes" This is a common theme in Pratchett regarding authority figures”
That said Vimes does participate in a revolution of sorts in that book, as “John Keel”, in the past.