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Setting the stage
STAN 00:00:01
I think what is so unique about science fiction it’s not science or fiction, it’s something in between – the space, the tension, the punctuation between two worlds.
JANE 00:00:16
I’m Jane McConnell, and welcome to Imaginize World, where we talk with forward thinkers, pioneering organizations and writers of speculative fiction. We explore emerging trends, technologies, world-changing ideas and, above all, share our journeys, challenges and successes.
0:40
Chan Qiufan, also known as Stanley Chan, is a Chinese author, columnist and scriptwriter. His work has been recognized far beyond China. When I met him, one of the most important questions I asked him is “how can we bring about change?” And his answer is “Often it’s through storytelling”, and he is a powerful storyteller. You can discover his body of work on his website in the show notes.
But one I do need to talk about with you here is Waste Tide, a phenomenal novel he wrote in 2013, translated into English, what six years later, in 2019. Some people call it a sci-fi thriller. It’s actually a very broad and very deep story, if you can call it that, that explores environmental issues, impact on society, what he calls the invisible people, personal development, social behaviors, life and death, and more. One reviewer I saw called it the pinnacle of near future science fiction writing.
He also co-authored AI 2041, 10 Visions for Our Future with Dr Kai Fu Lee. It was named the best book of the year by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Financial Times, and something that really surprised me and pleased me is to learn that it won the German best business book prize of the year. That’s because his subject is not really science fiction as we think of it.
Stanley has won many prizes. He’s been invited to participate in a variety of university and global initiatives focused on humanities, including at DePaul and Yale. Way too many to cite here. I encourage you to check out his website in the show notes.
2:33
Now I’d like to take a step back before we go into conversation and ask the question of why is science fiction essential? Stan has a fantastic quote I’m going to read to you. He says “By imagining the future through science fiction, we can even step in, make change and actively play a role in shaping our reality. In other words, with every future we wish to create, we must first learn to imagine it.” You imagine it and then you create it. Very powerful.
3:06
Stan’s looking for a new term to replace the label of science fiction because he feels he’s writing in the space, sort of a triangle between science, technology and humanity, connecting the past and the future. He was one of the speakers at the annual Paris Peace Forum, which is an event organized by a French nonprofit organization that brings together heads of state, leaders of international organizations and companies, and civil society organizations. Their goal is to create collective, action-oriented initiatives on global governance.
Knowing that I lived in France, Stan suggested we meet up in Paris after the Forum and have our podcast conversation face-to-face. That’s exactly what we did and that’s what I’m sharing with you now. Join us in Paris.
Chen Qiufan, writing across boundaries, writing to expand the concept of science fiction
JANE 00:03:55
Well Stanley, it’s just amazing to be face-to-face with you here in Paris.
STAN
Thank you for having me, Jane.
JANE
I never thought this would happen. Once you agreed to be interviewed, I figured we’d arrange it, we’d do it long distance. And then when you said you were in France, and better still in Paris, and you suggested we meet in Paris, and that’s great.
STAN
Actually, it’s quite close.
JANE
Yes, it is actually.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE 00:04:20
Now the first question I want to ask you is, how would you describe yourself? I don’t feel like you’re a science fiction writer as such. And when I look at what you’ve written, what you’ve done, you seem to be in a different dimension than what most people perceive science fiction to be.
STAN 00:04:43
Yeah, I’m glad you brought this up, because during the previous, I think two or three years I’ve been reflecting about this term science fiction writer and science fiction basically. And I think, of course I started as a sci-fi fan of for all of those classic Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke stories, and Star Wars, Star Trek. And it’s all very scientific in a way. And in China we put it in even more scientific way, it has to be very rigorous about science and based on facts and knowledge we’ve known, and it’s written in a textbook maybe. But now it feels to me like what I try to do is something more than that, something across the boundaries, something interdisciplinary, something even about spirituality and mysticism. And because I think science fiction in a way is the modern myth, so it tries to explain the world in a different way, in a scientific and technological way, but I think that’s not enough, because there are so much we don’t know about ahead of us.
So during all this conversation and journey and exploration with scientists, thinkers, philosophers, and artists around the world, so I think basically we need to view up some new narratives, so which couldn’t be in capture in the very narrow perspective of science fiction. So I didn’t have a new term for it yet, but I tried to use my writing, my story to expand the concept of science fiction. Maybe I’ll call it something later, but now it’s difficult to get rid of that label, because the publishers, the marketing people, if you started from writing science fiction, because that’s how people categorize you, and they’re going to put this label of genre on your books, and put on a specific place on the shelves, and it’s easy to sell, but I think it’s quite limited what you are doing and what you’re thinking about. So this is what I try to tell myself, you are basically storyteller.
JANE 00:07:30
Storyteller?
STAN
Yeah, storyteller and messenger, you deliver some message in the format of story in whatsoever media. Could be text, could be visual, could be something else, maybe interactive game even more, so, I don’t know, but it’s all about story.
Science fiction uniqueness between fiction and reality, the past and the future
JANE 00:07:56
Yeah, that’s interesting. I was going to ask you, what makes science fiction unique from other forms of writing? And in fact, what you’re saying is that you’re trying to already change the definition of science fiction to be even, how would I say it? Greater than the perception of science fiction today?
STAN
Yeah, because right now we have the new term speculative fiction for quite a few years. And even people are not quite clear about what it actually means, because it seems to be very inclusive, you can put in a lot of different genres, like maybe fantasy, slipstream, or even magical realism, all can be put into this blanket. But I think what is so unique about science fiction is its interconnected, different discourses from the scientific and technological perspective, but also from the humanity perspective. And it’s something between fictional and reality. And it’s something about the past and the future because we talk about all the things happen in outer space or other-worldly, but basically we’re presenting, reflecting the present, the human condition right now. So this is something, flexibility, fluidity across the borderlines. I think this is so unique about science fiction, it’s not science or fiction, is something in between, the space, the tension, the punctuation between two worlds.
JANE 00:09:42
I wonder what you would say are the things from the past that are very important for us now and in the future, because we as a global group of people, we tend to focus so much on the future and we forget the past, do you think there are certain things in the past that we need to think more about?
STAN
Of course. People, human, we’re basically species with a pattern recognition. We see patterns in a totally chaotic message data. We try to seek for certain kind of pattern, and we abstract all these patterns and use it to predict the future. So this is what human do, and also machines do the same thing. So without thinking about the past, the history, basically you couldn’t do anything about predicting the future. And all these things happen in the past basically decided how you look into the future. Yeah, so I think science fiction, speaking of Handmaid’s Tale, 1984, Brave New World, which was written many, many decades ago, but basically it’s talking about also history, present, but also the future, it’s like space-time continuum.
Real life issues and imaginary narrative
JANE 00:11:16
Yes. You have a quote, I have a quote from you about science fiction, which I think is a very powerful quote. And you say, “With science fiction, I can probe real-life issues through an imaginary narrative…” And this is the interesting part, “… without explicitly arguing who is right or wrong, good or evil.” I find that a challenging statement because you seem to be suggesting that we cannot determine right and wrong, or perhaps you mean that it’s up to each individual. What is your idea?
STAN
For instance in Waste Tide, so basically you can see this objective description of different classes, different interest party, they all have the justify statement. So they all think they’re doing the right thing about the world, about the rest of the people. And I think this is reality. So it’s different layers. If you see things from different angles, basically you see different sides, facets of reality, and you have your own explanation and justification. So I think with science fiction, or with my writing, I try to bring in this multilayers and diversity of reality. And I don’t want to making all this judgment instead of the readers themselves.
Right or wrong: the reader’s burden
JANE 00:13:04
I’m just going to say, you’re putting a big burden on the reader.
STAN
Yes, that might be a burden.
JANE
A good burden, but I mean, someone who reads you seriously will feel obliged to think about it.
STAN
Yeah, it’s not only cognitively or intellectually have to think about it, but also emotionally.
JANE
Oh yeah.
STAN 00:013:33
You have to feel with it, you have to, compassion, empathy, all these things. You should feel what the characters feel about the world.
JANE
You achieved that really well.
STAN
Thank you so much.
JANE 00:013:44
I mean, certain characters in, for example, AI 2041, I’ll never forget, they’re very, very, not necessarily strong characters, but the emotional side, the human side, I think it’s even stronger than the AI side. In fact, if I hadn’t known the title of the book, it wouldn’t have crossed my mind that AI would be part of the title of the book. It was more about humans, lives, the future.
STAN
I mean, Dr. Lee, he is in charge of the AI part, so he’s the expert. So what I try to do is bring in as much as I could the human factors, I think that’s relevant. And all this autonomy agency is something, could make the differences.
JANE 00:14:30
Yes. Well, you’ve certainly done that very well. I think that’s why people are attracted to listening to you and why you get invited to different places, because you’re bringing something, you talked about transmitting a message, but you’re bringing something that’s so far beyond science fiction, beyond AI. And I think you have a way of speaking to people on our level. You don’t come across as a scientist or a literary person, but a humanist.
STAN
I try my best.
JANE
Yeah. Well, you’re doing it very successfully.
STAN
Co-authoring with AI, judged by an AI jury
JANE 00:15:04
Now, I read about a book that I couldn’t read because I don’t read Chinese, and it’s called Algorithms for Life.
STAN
Yes.
JANE
And you’ve marked that it’s co-authored by AI. What do you mean?
STAN
I mean, it was before ChatGPT, and that was back in 2017 when I started to write this book. And it’s six short stories and novella about human-AI relationship. So I’ve been thinking about why shouldn’t I have an AI to collaborate with me, because I used to work for Google, so I have all these engineer friends, and who are also sci-fi fans. So I invited him, Mr. Wenfeng Wang, he’s the president of Sino Venture AI Research Institute. So he said, “Okay, let’s build a thing.” So back then there was no ChatGPT, that was the year when Google launched Transformer, the model, the infrastructure of ChatGPT and everything right now. And basically we’re just using some open source codes from GitHub and built a very preliminary model and fed it with all my writing materials basically, it’s very small amount of data sets. So what it could generate is basically very simple, and sometimes chaotic, sometimes nonsense, Evan-G style murmuring. So you have to view something around that to make it sensible for the readers. And that’s how I started to think about the whole experiments about writing. And surprisingly, it even won me in an award.
JANE
I saw that, yeah.
STAN
Jury by another AI is totally-
JANE
Oh, that’s right, there was an AI jury.
STAN 00:17:08
So it’s totally different AI built up by different teams and using different language, I suppose. And the criteria of the judgment is the balance of the structure, they’re giving a curve and a score to each story, all written by very established writers in China, published on very famous literature magazines, but there are thousands of this kind of story. So they’re giving a score to each one. So at the very beginning, Mr. Mo Yan, the Nobel Prize winner of literature, he got the highest score. So everyone thought, “Oh, this AI jury works very well. Mr. Mo Yan, what could be wrong?.” So he’s the best, but at the final day, so when another magazine in Shanghai, the Fiction World, which I published my story, and they submitted a bunch of materials to the AI jury, and surprisingly, my story, The State of Trance got the highest score.
JANE
Higher than the-
STAN
Mr. Mo Yan, so I’m the first place.
JANE
Wow.
STAN 00:18:28
Yeah. So that’s my lifetime experience to be the Nobel Prize winner.
JANE
Yes.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
That’s very interesting.
STAN
It’s fantastic.
JANE
Can AI replace writers? Touch the human heart?
STAN 00:18:38
Yeah, but somehow one AI recognized some stories co-written with another AI is the best story among thousands of stories, human stories. So this is so surreal and so science fictional. And I think that’s the moment I start to think about, “Oh, maybe we’re already in this transition towards a more alienated future,” no matter on creative writing or whatsoever. So we are already in there, but-
JANE
You said alienated, is that right?
STAN
Yeah, alienated.
JANE 00:19:20
Alienated from?
STAN
From the world we used to know about writing, because we used to think that creative writing, all these artistic forms is all belong to human.
JANE
Yes.
STAN
Yeah, there’s no way machine can replace us, because maybe they can do a lot of other things, but not this. But it is changing, it’s changing in a very strange way.
JANE
Yes.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE 00:19:52
That was one of the industries I wanted to ask you on the story you wrote, My Haunting Idol.
STAN
Yes.
JANE
And at the end, I mean without going into detail about the story, she is hired to help work with the man, the haunting idol. And someone in the story says, “Writers and editors have a knack for telling stories that can touch hearts.” And they wanted her because they needed something that was human, to touch hearts. So they’re saying that AI writing cannot touch hearts, or did I get that right?
Can AI do better psychological therapy than human therapists?
STAN 00:20:35
Yes, you get it totally right. And I think of course, from a very humanistic perspective, yeah, that’s for sure. But now I’m not 100% convincing that machine couldn’t touch the human hearts, because in China recently, there’s a project under developing by big tech companies, they’re using AI for psychological therapy. Yeah, so they’re using AI therapist for those depressive and suicidal patients. And they found it surprisingly good-
JANE
Really?
STAN
… and accurate on the result, on speculating their mental status and intervening with their interaction through the conversation basically, and maybe prevent them from committing suicide. So they found it doing a very good job, even better than human therapist. So I think this is definitely something that might happen in the near, near future.
JANE
Maybe people felt less threatened-
STAN
Yeah, I think.
JANE
… and not going to be judged by another human.
STAN
Yes, of course.
JANE
And so they could answer questions more honestly. Maybe they felt like they were talking with themselves, because the people knew it was an AI?
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
They knew it?
STAN
Yeah, without being judged, without bias, because sometimes people have this interesting chemistry, so you just don’t feel easy when you having another person in the room. So I mean, yeah, I definitely believe that AI at certain point, it can touch the human heart in a very different approach. Yeah.
AI in the insurance business: helping or hurting people?
JANE 00:22:37
Yeah, one of my questions was to talk about a few different industries where you think AI can have a benefit and can also potentially do harm, and one of them was healthcare. So I mean, we’ve touched on that. What about the insurance business? The insurance business is already a questionable business.
STAN
Yeah, of course.
JANE
We see what’s happening in the United States now with the different climate change problems and the rising waters, and how some insurance companies are literally leaving states like Florida or California because they can’t take the financial risk. How can AI make insurance better, or can it?
STAN
I mean, definitely AI can do the jobs of collecting data, analysis, strategies and decision-makings in a more capable way than human. But I think the fundamental problem here is the nature of capitalism, because they try to maximize the profits and avoid any risk and potential risk. So that means they’ll pull out of some certain areas, some certain markets, if they foresee the risk might happen, like the war or climate change or whatsoever, but this is not decided by technology, not by AI. So I mean, unless we have reviewed the whole system and governance by AI, so that means the whole insurance infrastructure and redistribution systems are basically designed by AI. Could be in the far, far future.
JANE
That’s not in 2041?
STAN
No. Definitely no.
It’s humans who design/define algorithms, people at the top of the system
JANE 00:24:33 k
Your story, “The Golden Elephant”, that’s very interesting because their AI is encouraging people to live more healthily, and so that’s a benefit. And yet on the other hand, it’s keeping people from doing, in the case of the heroine in The Golden Elephant from being with the man that she loves.
STAN
Yeah. I mean, there are so many layers about human behaviors and social interaction. So it’s very complex to doing the math, to calculating all these benefits or harms in a very balancing way. So it depends on how we design the AI, the algorithm.
JANE
Well, that comes down to humans, doesn’t it? How humans behind the algorithm…
STAN
Yes. At the end of the day, the insurance company, behind the scene, they decided, “Which part we should brought up the weight a little bit?” It’sk all about the configuration. So all these parameters, we have to just adjust a little bit of this, adjust a little bit of that, but they have the whole picture, they see the whole picture, and they can make it profitable. And that’s what important to them.
JANE 00:25:52
For the insurance company?
STAN
Yeah, but each individual basically in this whole picture is just being reduced to a profile, data. So they just don’t care about the dignity, the free will, all these feelings and actualization as a person. So this is something I didn’t see it could be changed by technology or the system.
JANE
Because that’s the people at the top of the system, of the healthcare system, who are determining how AI is going to function, what the algorithms are. So those people need to change.
STAN
Capital-led culture and mindset
JANE 00:26:36
That’s what you meant by capitalism, their interest is money.
STAN
Yes, this capital-led culture and mindset is fundamental. So that’s why I put it in the story, basically it’s the new cost system, and amplified by AI. So it’s getting even worse because everything is so invisible, but it’s functioning so well and so deeply in our social structure, at the end of the story, the untouchable boy, Sahej. So he had this big dream about, he really wants to change the whole thing, started from being a humanistic engineer. He can do the coding, but also he understand all this inequality of the society and he have all these compassions to the people. So this is what we need beyond it.
JANE
And the end of the story, we don’t know what’s going to happen, that bothered me. I would’ve liked you to give us an answer, an end, but you didn’t.
STAN
No. I mean, the hope is within our hands, but it is all decided by the collective effort made by everyone. So if we can create all the consensus big enough, then maybe we can make the change. But the problem is this structure is very imbalanced.
AI, a personalized educational companion
JANE 00:28:19
I want to get into that a little bit later in another question, but just one more industry I’d like to look at, and that’s the industry of education, and your story, “Twin Sparrows” was amazing. And there we saw how education can turn kids into just competing with each other rather than giving them the true desire to be creative, to learn, to explore. How do you foresee that developing, the field of education with AI?
STAN
Yeah. I mean, because I was born and raised in China, a very typical over-competitive society. In the education system, basically that’s what you do, that’s what you’ve been taught.
JANE 00:29:05
You’re taught to compete.
STAN
Of course. Since kindergarten, you have to work harder, and you’re getting better score than anyone else in the class. And this is our mindset, but I think it’s very [toxic], and basically, I think it is not leading us to any brighter future. And of course, Chinese parents, they’re so caring, and maybe sometimes too caring about the future of their kids, and they try to give them the best educational resources, and that’s why they bought this house, apartment in better location, closer to more privileged schools, and try to get into the best class, because they share the best teachers, whatsoever, curriculums is different, but I think at the end of the day, still it’s so unequal, because each kid is different, each kid, their talent, their learning pattern, their interest, their personality, everything is so different, so unique. So if you couldn’t design a curriculum and customize everything you read, you learn, you play by individually, so basically it’s not equal. So I think AI could do the thing in the future, and it can help each kid to fully actualize what they want to learn, who they want to become.
JANE 00:30:55
AI would ask them questions?
STAN
Yeah. So basically this is like a companion co-living with them all the time. So they constantly learn through interaction. So it basically understand better than their parents for each kid. So I think of course the biggest obstacle here is the educational institution. So this is so conventional, it’s very difficult to be changed, talking about China, because so many interest party related to the educational industry. So basically they don’t want to share any piece of cake here. But when we talk about AI, it’s revolutionized the thing. So maybe we don’t need teacher, maybe we don’t need school, maybe we don’t need class in the future, but that means it totally review another educational industry.
JANE 00:32:03
I know in the United States, I’ve talked to some people recently who belong to groups that I belong to online, and apparently they’re having trouble finding teachers in America. Teachers are feeling frustrated about the educational system, and they don’t want to continue their careers. I think they don’t feel free enough to do what they want to do. And you know there’s the big movement about books that are being banned in the United States. And so a number of people feel like they don’t want to be part of the educational system. You can understand that?
STAN
Yeah, they’re just so frustrated.
JANE
Yeah.
STAN 00:32:35
Yeah. And I mean, not the exactly same issue in China, but similar, because I mean, the kids couldn’t select as freely as they love on the books, on the class, on the curriculums, on the teacher, of course, they just be assigned to a certain class, books, textbooks, and exam is mandatory. So basically we’ve been taught there are standard answers to each questions. That means there are options, they are a pattern or stereotype of answering certain kind of questions. So you have to hit each sweet spot and get the score. And that’s how we’ve been trained since kid. I think it’s basically just ruin our imagination and it’s not innovative anyways. So this is how we got suffocated, our creativity.
Biggest crisis today is losing our sense of purpose of living
JANE 00:33:46
Yeah, I think in America that’s what’s happening. The second big-picture thing I’d like to look at with you is purpose in life, a sense of worth. A lot of people are losing their sense of purpose. Young people, I’m thinking now mainly in Europe and in the United States, are looking for jobs where they can sense the company has a purpose that’s compatible with their own sense of purpose, and they can’t always find that. What do you think about that?
STAN
I mean, it’s the core issue right now, not only on the young people, but on the modern society, we’re losing our purpose, or we replace our personal purpose with the corporate or national purpose. I think, yeah, it feels like the biggest crisis, mentality crisis and spiritual crisis here, is about the purpose of living.
JANE
The purpose of living.
STAN
Involution: lack of curiosity and passion in young people
JANE 00:34:53
You used a word that you say is being used in China now more, involution instead of evolution, turning inward. So you said involution is used quite often, or you use it quite often?
STAN
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s a term brought up by the anthropologist professor Xiang Biao. And it become so popular in China because it perfectly described the status, how the people feel right now. So it is overly competing, even you are self-criticizing because you’re not doing good enough, you fail the competition anyways, is this exhausting process, recursively self-blame, and it is draining you, your energy, your creativity, your passion for living. So basically nobody wants to do anything, just lying flat. So that’s also the term.
JANE
Lying flat?
STAN
Yeah, lying flat. So basically doing nothing, passively resisting, not getting married, not in real relationship, not buying things, not working. So that basically means-
JANE 00:36:17
I was thinking of the quiet quitting that they talk about, but quiet quitting tends to be related just to the job, not to not getting married or not having a private life, but the whole quiet quitting is just doing whatever the minimum is to keep the job.
STAN
Yeah, I think this is even worse, young people losing their passion on everything, so they don’t have interest to do anything. I mean, when I was a teenager, you have a lot of interest and curiosity on many things, even you were forbidden to get in touch with those things sometimes, but you always have this enthusiasm to have a look at it or try it or whatsoever, but now it seems like they don’t have it. I try to ask, because I’ve been invited to many universities, maybe high schools, to talk to the young people and ask them, “What you really love to do? What you are really interested in?” But they tried very hard to come up with an answer.
JANE
Oh, really?
STAN
But ultimately they came up with a blank face.
JANE
Really?
STAN
Yeah. So that’s totally shocking to me, because I couldn’t imagine people like that could find their real passion on doing anything, can make the change for our future. So this is, I think, of course I’ll write a lot of things in a story, maybe some people will read it, maybe some people might feel, “Okay, this is encouraging and inspiring,” and they start to think about it, and maybe at certain point they find a real interest and passion.
Writing for 9 to 12-year olds, the crucial age
JANE 00:38:10
You wrote a book that I asked you about because I wanted to read it, Net Zero. It was Net Zero in China, was that the full name?
STAN
Net Zero China.
JANE
Net Zero China
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
I thought it sounded fascinating. And I couldn’t find a copy of it anywhere. And you told me it was not-
STAN
It’s in Chinese.
JANE
First of all, it was only in Chinese, and secondly, it was written for children. I find that an amazing thing.
STAN
Yeah, it was published last year, so it’s for kids around 9 to 12, maybe a little bit younger or older, so because I think this is the crucial age for develop your curiosity on everything. So because back in my age, by then, that’s how I started with science fiction and everything. So I think this is so important to have them to understand what is climate change, what is the correlation with carbon neutrality, and how are we going to achieve that, by changing our technology and society, and even individual behavior, consumption and lifestyle, et cetera, and try to bring all of this to connect with some philosophical thinking like Daoism in a harmonious way. So I’m happy that the book got received very well.
JANE 00:39:37
I was just going to ask you what the reaction was.
STAN
A lot of primary school, so they have the kids to read the book and write some reviews on it, even short stories, and even they create some illustration about the book, and they send it to me, and I read a lot of reviews. And I was so encouraged that we still have some hope because the kids, still they love to learn more about it and they start to think about it, and what future society should look like and how to construct it and what we should do starting from now on. Yeah, so this is something I feel I have to do it, and I will do it more in the future. So to bring in more maybe technology, maybe real issues, but in a way that children are easy to access and to comprehend what is going on out there. And in a funny way, of course.
JANE
I think that’s fantastic. I would hope that your book or others like it would be translated into English-
STAN
I hope. Yeah.
JANE 00:40:54
… because I think your messages goes way beyond China.
STAN
Yeah, I think maybe we need to change the title a little bit.
JANE
Oh well, yes. Net Zero in the World maybe?
STAN
Yeah, or Net Zero Game.
JANE
Yeah, that’s it, Net Zero Game, that’s perfect.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE 00:41:12
Yeah, I was just thinking that the reaction of the children could interest and stimulate other children if they see what they’ve drawn and what they’ve said, you could start a whole movement.
STAN
Yeah. And I have some Zoom call with the kids online, because that was back in the lockdown term. So everyone taking the class from their home.
JANE
From home, yes.
STAN
Yeah. So it’s so funny seeing all these kids’ face on the screen and in different rooms, and sharing their understandings of the book and talking about the future of climate change and everything, it feels so surreal in a way.
JANE
You may have started something really big.
STAN
I hope, I hope. Yeah, because I mean, they are the generation who will live through the whole transition. If they couldn’t understand it fully, then how can we expect the change could happen, right?
The 8-to-5 dignity
JANE 00:42:26
Yeah, it makes me think on a different angle about the story you wrote called “The Job Savior”, and the whole idea there is that it’s more people get a sense of value because they have something to do from 8:00 to 5:00. It doesn’t matter much what the job is, it’s that their sense of purpose and value in life is that they have a job. That’s sad, isn’t it?
STAN
I mean, different people, they have different read into the story. Some might find it very dystopic, but some might find it, “Oh, this is some kind of future I want.” Because they don’t need to do the real thing, but still get paid. So I mean, yeah, it is sad at certain point because people are not doing the real job, but at certain point I feel like this is something might definitely happen because, as David Graeber put it, Bullshit Jobs, it’s basically here, it’s basically everywhere.
JANE
It is here now.
STAN
So we just push it a little bit farther, like designed by AI, driven by XR, but still it’s the system here.
JANE
It’s a logical outcome, the way you-
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
… pushed it just a little bit further.
STAN 00:43:55
So people talking about, maybe 20% of the population, they can afford the whole country because all the fortune they’re making is basically enough. So what about the rest of the people, what should they do? Universal Basic Income, but that’s not solving all the problem, right?
JANE
No, it doesn’t solve the problem.
Maslow’s pyramid, the 6th dimension: transcendence
STAN 00:44:17
Yeah. So people need purpose, again, dignity.
JANE
Yeah, getting back to purpose.
STAN
Yes.
JANE
Seems to me it’s going to be a fundamental problem in years to come, what the purpose is.
STAN 00:44:28
Yeah. So I mean, there are many different dimensions of purpose. Of course, secular one, of course financial ones, of course social-class ones. But I mean, Maslow developed his theories at his later years with this kind of transcendental-
JANE
Yes, Maslow’s pyramid?
STAN
Yes.
JANE
Yes.
STAN
He put another-
JANE
The top level was-
STAN
Self-actualization.
JANE
… self-actualization, yeah.
STAN
But at his later year, he put another hierarchy-
JANE
Did he? Self-actualization is the last one on here.
STAN
… on the top of that. Yeah, on the top of it.
JANE
He did it on top, above that?
STAN 00:45:12
It’s called transcendental psychology something.
JANE
In other words, it’s beyond the self.
STAN
Yes, and it’s very spiritual. It’s about connected to the universe or something, even more transcendental, it’s about talking to the God or something like that.
JANE
I wasn’t aware of that level. I knew the five, but I wasn’t aware of the sixth.
STAN
I think, yeah, that was in the ’80s. Yeah, so this is something not very well known, but it’s real, because I don’t know. And I find it very interesting because this universally exists among all these different kind of religions around the world. So it’s all about reconnect to the One, no matter how you define the One, it’s the universe, it’s the God, is the Buddha, of course there are many different ways to define it, the one. But it’s always about how you finding this belonging, ultimate purpose of reunited with something. So it’s religious, it’s transpersonal, and it’s something, I don’t know, it feels to me like maybe we need that, it’s more spiritual.
JANE 00:46:32
Yeah, but you know what’s interesting then, is that he starts at the lower levels of you have to have a food and drink, physical safety and social connections. My understanding of it is you can’t start at the top. So you have to be able to build up to what you’re talking about. Now, maybe that’s not true, maybe people can go in at the highest level without having that safety and food and…
Happiness is building up from the basement. Meanings in Chinese
STAN 00:47:00
I don’t think so. It is just like the process of evolution, you have to build up from the basement, and top upon that, upon that, upon that and reach the top. Maybe some people just couldn’t reach the top.
JANE
You talk about that in “The Isle of Happiness”.
STAN
Yes.
JANE 00:47:19
That’s a very interesting story, what is happiness? It’s reaching the top level. And how do you reach the top level? It seems to me in this story, you start at the bottom and you work your way up.
STAN
Yeah. I mean, again, it’s a very subjective feeling of happiness. And even the definition of happiness is so complex in different culture contexts. So even in translation, in Chinese, happiness can be translated into different characters.
JANE 00:47:56
Different words?
STAN
Yes, different words. So kuàilè is happiness, but it means very instant reaction at the moment. But there’s another translation, xìngfú, it’s more long-term, it’s more constant and stabilizing experience. And I think it’s within the structure, like a family structure, relationship structure, or a social structure. So basically when the government talking about xìngfú, basically on that level, it’s a very stable and prosperity status of living. And it’s co-living, it means everyone find its own position in the society, and it’s very satisfying. So this is a very Confucianism understanding of happiness. But in Daoism philosophy, it’s totally different, it means you don’t need anything to be happy. You yourself, your existence is happiness. If you realize it, basically you just have the ultimate, and unlimited happiness of your life, and you don’t need anything else. So this is very diverse understanding of happiness.
JANE
Yes, I didn’t realize there were that many different definitions.
STAN
Yeah, in our culture. So yeah, there are many different approaches to happiness, but I put it in Middle East because it’s rich, and I set up this character as a Russian.
JANE
Yes, a Russian, it was Qatar.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
Yes.
STAN 00:49:46
So this is something, delivery to set up, because there are all kind of symbolic representation-
JANE
Oh yeah.
STAN
… of certain kind of understanding of happiness.
JANE 00:49:59
Yeah, it was all the rich people that had gathered together.
STAN
Yeah, because there’s something, maybe in a secular way, we all have the common sense that, “Oh, maybe all of those richer people, privileged people, they might be happier than us.” We have this kind of speculation. I don’t know, maybe not in the rest of the world, but in China people have that kind of feeling. Yeah, it’s a very pragmatic understanding.
JANE
It makes sense to have different words for this-
STAN
Yeah, of course.
JANE
… because the word happiness is just, I would say very, almost shortsighted as a word.
STAN
Yes.
JANE
You tend to think, you smile, you’re happy, and in our culture, in the Western culture, you don’t really think about it beyond that. And so when you get into different religions, it’s different.
STAN
Yeah, it’s totally different.
JANE
Yeah.
STAN
Individuals and how to integrate our capitalistic schizophrenia into our real selves
JANE 00:50:52 kk
One of my questions for you is, can individuals make a difference in the world? And the example I wanted to talk about was Mimi in Waste Tide. Amazing. Mimi 0 and Mimi 1, and I was going to ask you why not… I thought Mimi 1 and Mimi 2, but there’s a reason you have Mimi 0 and Mimi 1.
STAN
Yeah, of course the binary, the coding, yeah, of course that’s obvious. But another thing I’ve been thinking about, again, Daoism is from zero to one, it’s from none to being. So this is something transcendental. And again, this capitalistic schizophrenia, it’s something divided the people, the personality into two, and how we can integrate ourself.
JANE 00:51:50
That’s what I was thinking when I was reading it, and of course the different things that happens to her throughout the story, it’s like two parts of the same person, and the two parts are talking to each other. And it made me think, “Don’t we all have that?”
STAN
Yeah, of course.
JANE
You think we do?
STAN
Yes, always. And this kind of conversational process is part of our consciousness, maybe our intelligence. So you have to develop this kind of self-observation and self-refraction, then you can recursively come back to yourself and you can grow. Yeah.
Waste Tide, multi-layered
JANE 00:52:30
Yeah. Well, Waste Tide is such an amazing work-
STAN
Thank you.
JANE
… that I don’t even think we can talk about it, because it’s… No, I’m only partially joking, but it’s deep, it’s wide, it’s very layered. It’s very layered like this and it’s layered like this. I would say it’s layered in all directions. You wrote it, if I have it correctly, in 2003, in Chinese?
STAN
2013.
JANE
’13?
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
Okay. In Chinese?
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
And then it was translated into English a little later.
STAN
Yeah, 2019.
JANE
Okay, six years.
STAN
Six years. Yeah.
JANE
Yes. I think it would be quite a job to do the translation.
STAN
Yeah, it took a while.
JANE
I’m sure it did.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE 00:53:16
Yeah. And it’s a book that I think everybody should read. There are parts of it that are hard to read. I mean, just emotionally hard to read, but it’s the kind of book that you can’t put down. I’d like to move on to another topic that has to do with globalization. That’s something you’ve talked about, globalization, you believe we cannot achieve it without consensus, is that right?
STAN
Globalization needs consensus, impossible need to sacrifice some of “my share”, trapped in our national state frameworks
JANE 00:53:48
And I’ve worked with a lot of global organizations, and they’re always trying to achieve consensus in the way they do their digital workplace and the way they do their communication strategy, always trying to achieve consensus. They never can. And I remember I worked with an agency in Switzerland, the Human Refugees Agency for the UN, and they had blocked everything on their digital workplace because they couldn’t reach consensus on how to organize certain things. And I was able, working with them, to get them to agree to have one person make the decisions, if that person consulted with every person who would be involved by those decisions. Now-
STAN
Bureaucracy.
JANE 00:54:33
Yeah, I was just going to say that’s not really a consensus, but for them, it was the only way they could break out of this blockage they had. And so they agreed, they put someone in charge and so on. But yeah, bureaucracy, how can you achieve consensus? Can we?
STAN
In the current institutionalization, I don’t think it’s possible, yeah. I mean right now, for example, the Peace Forum and the forthcoming COP 28, all these big conferences and big issues, big agendas. But at the end of the day, we are still trapped in this national state framework of thinking, because we have our own interest party, we have our own people, we have different class, we have hierarchy. So all the things determined that we couldn’t get a certain consensus. Even if we can build on some very basic understanding, some framework, and something is bad, of course climate change is doing harm to the people and it is getting even more challenging, but what is the plan, what is the action? This is more to the core because it requires sacrifice on economy, on recruitment, on human labors, on whatsoever, tradings. It’s all part of the globalization, but that means you have to sacrifice a piece of, “My share.” And this is where all the conflicts came from.
JANE 00:56:41
Yeah, because people don’t want to make that sacrifice.
STAN
Of course, of course. And the [global South countries], of course, “Why we need to sacrifice?” “Because most of the pollutions, most of the carbon emission was caused by you, the developed countries.”
JANE
That’s a reasonable answer, isn’t it?
STAN
Yeah, of course, of course. But again, climate change is global, right?
JANE
“Not in my backyard” does not work for climate change, Kim Stanley Robinson‘s solution in the Ministry For the Future
STAN 00:57:07
So there’s no borderline, there’s no, “We can limit the temperature within my regime, but not in yours.” So, “Not in my backyard,” basically is not going to be valid anyways. So I didn’t see the solution to any of this. Of course, I’m just a writer, but I think we need some fundamental change on the mindset and we need to set up some new agenda, so to think beyond that, but yeah-
JANE 00:57:40
I’m trying to think of a book, I can’t remember the name of the book, by Kim Stanley Robinson.
STAN
Of course. The Administration of Future?
JANE
The Ministry [for] the Future.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
That was something. I mean, he came up with an idea there.
STAN
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s very optimistic.
Storytelling building civilization since the caveman age
JANE 00:57:57
You think he’s optimistic?
STAN
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JANE
He said he went for the global bankers because they’re the ones who had no interest in specific countries, specific regions. They were working at a global level. Now, I don’t know if we have global bankers.
STAN
I’m not sure.
JANE
Seems to me bankers tend to be of a bank of a government. So you think he’s an optimism about that, an optimist?
STAN
Yes. Of course. We need optimism.
JANE
I feel like you’re an optimist too.
STAN
I am, from a different angle, I guess.
JANE
Yes.
STAN 00:58:31
Yeah, but I mean, maybe only the storytelling is what we can do to create the consensus for the next generation.
JANE
A story can make something much more real than a government talking about to what you should do, if stories can pierce through people.
STAN
Yeah. So basically human civilization we built up upon storytelling since the caveman age.
JANE
Yes.
STAN
Yeah, without story we couldn’t make any consensus basically. You have to tell the story about how the world was created, how human was created, and how we can communicate with each other. And that’s all consensus.
JANE
Yes.
STAN
Yes.
JANE 00:59:23
You say here that, “In the age of globalization, there are no permanent winners. Whatever you’ve obtained, you’ll lose someday, and you’ll have to pay it back with interest.”
STAN
Of course.
JANE
That’s what you’re talking about, how you have to sacrifice something.
STAN
Yeah, think about all this colonial countries back in the day and what’s happening now, and all this backfires basically, the payoff here and there.
Invisible people, sacrificing to support our society, slow violence
JANE 00:59:57
It brings me to this next point I want to talk about. You often talk about inequality, and you talk about what you call invisible people, I think that’s really a good way of talking about it. And of course you have in Waste Tide, you have that very strongly, you have it in the “Contactless Love”, in both cases you have invisible people. Can you talk about that a little bit?
STAN
Yeah. I mean, this is something I always have strong compassion about, those who was basically invisible in our social interaction, but they’re basically sacrificing a lot to support the infrastructure of the society, the waste workers.
JANE
The waste workers, yes.
STAN
Yeah, basically without them, cities like Paris-
JANE
Wouldn’t-
STAN
Yeah, it wouldn’t exist. Think about the strike in the UK. So all the trash on the street, nobody’s taking care of them, and a total disaster. But I think they didn’t get treated fair enough. Of course, they didn’t get, in the book, insurance, healthcare, and even protection from the toxical environment and all this, we can call it slow violence, because all this-
JANE 00:57:41
Slow violence?
STAN
Yeah, the environmental issue basically is a process of maybe decades or centuries. So it’s a very slow, long-term of damage. So to the water, to the soil, to the air, but also to the transgenerational harms of people. So no matter it’s physically or mentally, or even genetically it’s changing us. So a lot of trauma, a lot of mental issue basically from pollution, from environmental damages. So it’s causing a lot of personal mentality issue and diseases. So this is by research for real. So I think all of these people and the invisible class, not only in China, but in India and elsewhere, is such a huge number of population, but it was so hard to see, and there’s so few of their story have been told. So this is what I concerned about, if we couldn’t see them, we couldn’t understand them, we don’t have the compassion to them, how can we build a more equal system?
Sequel to Waste Tide on an artificial island with a hopeful blueprint for society, invisible people, new ecosystem with AI
JANE 00:03:13
Well, in Waste Tide you really bring that out with strong characters. I mean, development that is strong about the different characters. You mentioned that you’re writing a sequel to Waste Tide?
STAN
Yes.
JANE
Are you able to talk about that a little bit, or is it-
STAN
Yeah, it’s on another island. I just talked to Patrick, I’m an islandic person because I was born and raised very close to seashore, and islandic experience, it was part of my childhood. So I’m always be fascinating by all these islands. So the new book will again happen on the other island, but it’s an artificial island, and it’s something like a hopeful future, like a blueprint of society to fighting against the climate change, but again, they’re also invisible.
JANE
I was just going to ask you if they’re invisible people.
STAN
Of course, that’s the key message there.
JANE
Interesting.
STAN
All these too-good-to-be-true solution, there must be some kind of sacrifice behind the curtain, and people not necessary to see that in a way. But the story is about how to review that part of the truth, and how can we think beyond that to make the real change happening. I have a different imagination with Kim Stanley Robinson’s solution, it might be a little bit surreal and spiritual-
JANE
Yours?
STAN 01:00:54
Yeah, my version of the solution, but yeah, it’s also with AI and non-human, human triangle intelligence, how we can work together, and to build a new kind of ecosystem.
JANE
That sounds really like a powerful message.
STAN 01:05:16
It’s very difficult to write to be honest, because after the ChatGPT moment, I took a pause because I have to rethink everything about AI. So you don’t want to be, when readers read your description about AI, they think it is dated. They think, “Oh, ChatGPT can do a better job than your character.” So I have to rethink a lot of things about how to imagine the future of AI in a different way, and how to put it down into storytelling in a different kind of style, because I think maybe we should get rid of those too tech-savvy, too info dumb too many explanation of what is happening, what is the technology behind the scene, but put it in a more mythological way. So yeah, but it’s super difficult, so still struggling with it.
JANE
What timeframe are you thinking of?
STAN
I think again, also like Waste Tide, we put it in 2020-something, because it was… Put it as 250 years anniversary of United States, so it’s 2026 or something. So this might be five, 10 years later than that. But again, it’s alternative history, so it could be any time, but it’s totally different timeline. So the world is different, the technology is different, but maybe there’ll be some interconnection with the reality, we never know.
JANE
Well, I can hardly wait to read it.
STAN
I wish I can finish it.
JANE
Are you writing it in Chinese?
STAN
Yes, yes.
JANE
So they’ll be at a translation period?
STAN
Yeah, yeah.
JANE
Have to wait even longer.
STAN
Yeah, yeah. But hopefully this time we can take a shorter time to get it done.
JANE
Well, because you’re better known now, so-
STAN
I wish.
JANE 01:07:37
… that should make a difference. You should have publishers fighting to have the rights to publish your book.
STAN
I hope. And the publisher here, Paris, they’d love to have the second book because the first one is doing very well in France. So I’m very happy to know that, yeah.
JANE
So it’s been translated into French then?
STAN
Yeah, maybe we can do it simultaneously.
JANE
Yes, that would be interesting.
STAN 01:04:06
Yeah, because in the first one, they need to read in English, then other languages they will follow. This is the rule, back in the day, but maybe not necessary because ….
JANE
Well, as the author, you ought to be able to request simultaneous translation in a certain number of countries.
STAN
Yeah. And I think maybe the key issue is can we find a qualified Chinese translator. In French, we have no problem, Gwennaël (Gaffric @GaffricG)is the-
JANE
I saw that on Twitter.
STAN
Yeah, he’s the best. He’s the best. Both language is native, so we have no problem on that. But not other markets, some are very difficult to find a good Chinese translator.
How to expand our limited view of the world, overcome technology echo chambers and self re enhancement, new framework of information flow,
JANE 01:08:53
All right. The last big-picture thing I’d like to talk to you about is that a lot of your characters have a limited view of the world.
STAN
Yeah.
JANE
And I mean, we’ve covered that briefly in different things we’ve said just now, but that people are just focused in too much on a limited view of the world. And you talk about, how shall I say it? That we need to find ways of expanding our views. That’s very clear in Waste Tide when that happens
STAN
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
JANE 01:09:26
And I’d like to know how you think we can expand our views. Does that come back to storytelling again, do you think?
STAN
Now it feels contradictory, we use all this technology, try to expand our view of the world, but basically we narrowed it down to echo chambers, something like that, just repeating.
JANE
Repeating, echo chamber, just-
STAN
Yeah, to ourself.
JANE
… same thing going around and-
STAN 01:09:55
Everything was recommended by algorithm, they’re just guessing what you love to read and just feed you what you love to read, and just self-re-kenhancement is totally wrong, so in my opinion. So I mean, we need to create this diverse, inclusive environment for information, right?
JANE
Yes.
STAN
That basically from far left to far right, you have the spectrum of different opinions on certain occasions. So you can see how these narratives be shifted from far left to far right, or even different angles. And you can see how this information and angles be manipulated. And people can realize, “Oh, what I saw, just a little slight of the reality.” And it can be easily shifted just by a little bit of wording or phrasing changed. So I think this is so crucial. And basically I think we need a new framework or new infrastructure of information flow, because all of our social media basically right now just running to create that kind of echo chamber. So we have to break through all of those wars. And not to mention wars between countries, between ideologies and between different beliefs. So this is where all these problems came from, we basically just see what we believe. And this is not expanding, this is just self-reenhancement.
Switching the political spectrum for a new framework
JANE 01:11:48
You say we need a new framework. How can we get that?
STAN
Actually there’s some people doing the thing.
JANE
Like what?
STAN
Max Tegmark from MIT, he did physics, he had this project basically using AI, machine learning to help people. You can switch the spectrum politically to see one news, and you can see the different version of it. And that’s very interesting, that’s the starting point of doing so. So imagine if we can have this. Of course it’s very difficult because considering the value of different media and different country, different culture, for sure, it’s very difficult to deploy it in a massive way, but if we have that kind of platform, allows people to, can have diverse and inclusive perspective of same reality, I mean. So maybe that’s a possible gateway towards-
JANE
That’s very interesting.
STAN
… a more open future.
JANE 01:13:00
Will it happen?
STAN
I don’t know. I don’t know, maybe people’s mind got messed up, could be. And because everything is so relatively different, and… Yeah, because we are talking about alignment issue on AI, but what I mean is basically human, ourself, we are not necessarily aligned to each other. Within EU basically there are a lot of misalignment.
JANE
Oh yeah, a lot.
STAN 01:13:36
Yeah, a lot. So I don’t see this happen-
JANE
At the Peace Forum.
STAN
… at the Peace Forum.
JANE 01:09:48
What takeaways did you have from the Peace Forum?
STAN
Yeah, I had this great, great conversation with all these big shots from Microsoft, from Meta Yann LeCun, from UESCO Gabriela [Ramos] and Ian Bremmer, geopolitics in Columbia University, he is so active on X. And I think there are very intensive argument on the stage, and you can see all this different position and perspective on AI regulation and policymaking, everything. So I think of course they’re all legit in a way, because from their perspective, from their vision, it of course is correct, but I also feel that we are just at the very beginning of the paradigm shift. So as I put it, we’re already living in singularity. It’s not just a single spot in time, but it’s a period of transition. Maybe it’s a century of singularity, but maybe afterward when we look back into history, we just realize, “Oh, that happened already there. We just didn’t realize it. We just didn’t recognize it in that way.”
JANE
AI reuniting humans as a species
STAN 01:15:29
Yes, basically. So people living in the big times, they didn’t realize it. So a lot of assumption was made afterward by the historians. And I think right now we’re in that paradigm-shifting moment. And all of those arguments, battlings will be a very extremely interesting part of the history. And basically I’m the one who observing all of those people, and I think I would love to have them in my stories because this is so real, this is so lively, and this is something I really love to represent, the different; even fragmented reality in understanding AI.
So, but I think what’s more important is, right now we just have the conference, The Declaration in UK, all these big players, they have agreed on something, on the regulation framework internationally. So we can foresee it coming that AI might be the thing that can reunite us human as a species, as a civilization, together. So this is so important because always in history, when you look back in time, we need some false enemy. Right now we need something so distinguishable, distinguished from human. So the others, they’re so different from our own kind, but this is what threatening us. Maybe it’s not for real, but we need that kind of thing, we need that external crisis to push us to think, to act, to united as one again. So maybe this is, in Chinese crisis, can be translated into two characters. One is w?i is crisis. And another is j?, it means opportunity or chance. So in Chinese, w?ij? crisis always means two part of the reality.
JANE
Wow.
STAN
So it’s very deeply embedded in our nature, we see one crisis, again, it’s an opportunity to save us.
How to learn to imagine. The beauty of imagination.
JANE 01:18:28
The name of my website that your podcast is going to appear on is called Imaginize World. What would you just in a sentence or two say if I say to you, “How do you imaginize the world?”
STAN
There’s one sentence in the book, AI 2041, is to create the future we want to live, how to say the word?
JANE
I have your quote here. It’s a wonderful quote, and I have part of it on the top of my webpage and my X page. With your name. I gave you credit for it.
STAN
Oh, thank you.
JANE
Yeah, “By imagining the future through science fiction, we can step in, make change, and actively play a role in shaping our reality. In other words, with every future we wish to create, we must first learn to imagine it.”
STAN
Yes, that’s the quote. So I mean, imaginize the world is something not taken for granted, you have to learn it first. So imagination is not… Of course, is intrinsically in our human nature, but it’s not naturally everyone knows how to imagine. I would say in a very personal way, I would say you have to use your human parts, like your embodied experience, your childhood memory, even your family history and your intrinsic responses of the surroundings, like the emotions, even those reaction beyond languages, I think those are the most important part, even those you couldn’t fully recognize and understand yet. But it’s more important that, for example, your dreams, and those part subconsciously, or even non-consciously, is basically the core of imagination. So imagination is not driven by logic or reasoning, it’s driven by something even more deeper than we can understand. So I think you need to train how you, just like a vessel, just like all these datas, information getting through you and through your interface, they might have some instant reactions, just like a melting pot, it’s like some alchemy processing. So some gold, some diamonds, some crystals, something might emerge from there. And you never know what it is, that’s the beauty of imagination.
JANE
Well, that’s a great answer to my question.
STAN
Thank you.
JANE 01:21:53
It’s been really wonderful talking with you, Stan.
STAN
The pleasure was mine.
JANE
We’ve covered a lot of things, and very deep, and very, very interesting. I want to really, really thank you for this conversation.
STAN
Thank you so much.
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