Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35711173-20181001004513/@comment-9041013-20181001212801

DrBobSmith wrote: Bloody Spaghetti,

Thank you for the review.

The assumption is that space flights are safe in limited quantities but this guy has been up there for so many years that the radiation has gotten to him. Rather like someone spending four years flying at 40,000 feet in an airliner would get enough radiation damage to come down with cancer while the guy making a once a year round trip ticket next to him would be fine. That may not be clear. I will have to work with that.

Nobody ever said this was a monotheistic society. In fact, I say exactly the opposite. The sentence says "the gods," not "God." Also "Joe had no hope of living with Jesus or being an honored ancestor." While the former is monotheistic, the second is Shinto.

I shall clarify that the family would have problems with what they perceive as suicide. His consciousness transferred to the great computer means his brain no longer has his consciousness. There are experimental procedures to do this to mice. It requires slicing the brain into sections that are a tiny fraction of the width of a hair. Perhaps it should be mentioned that his brain will be destroyed in the process, ending anything akin to life.

As for the "LISTEN TO HIM" issue, how about having the number of this white bot be visible and to have Mother tell him to listen to 3142 (or whatever). I could say "listen to 3142" but that seems wimpy. "Listen To 3142" ... it looks awkward. That leaves me with "LISTEN TO 3142," which you say isn't necessary.

For the time being, Joe still thinks of himself as a him. He is in the process of being utterly dehumanized but there's a little bit left.

As for talking tunas, we do have them in the USA.

All this cultural diversity seems rather forced, You don't see the first generation being Christian, second-generation converting to Hinduism and the third Generation switching to Bahai'ism. Kids usually follow the rules of their parents' cultures. The way you present your diverse culture seems really like this borderline fascistic view Social Justice Warriors have of what diversity should be, forced, not through natural cultural migrations.
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pJw3N4KmMQ
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4LLj6EQZCY
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HYOv9Fmt-Q

If you look at cultural hubs throughout history. You'd get a bunch of shrines from differing religions but then again, you'd have neighborhood A following religion 1, neighborhood B following religion 2 and so on and so on, and yet they all meet and the market and share a drink together and do commerce together and so on and so forth.

It's also somewhat irrelevant to the story, so sticking with just him being named like your proper Japanese American/Westener that's good enough.

You are presenting us with neurosciences that are still largely science fiction (perhaps forever even, because what makes a living sentient creature them is the specific electric waves and the specific path it goes through in their brain), you present us with some scientific ability to outlive our natural lifespan (which according to researches stands at around 115+-) and yet you've presented us with a world where space travel is a huge deal and they don't have a suitable space suit? I call that bull...

So you'd have to find another factor that leads to his rapidly declining health, maybe a new strain of space virus they have yet to find a cure for... Now this opens up new directions for your story, instead of looking down at him for wanting to "commit biological suicide" his family frowns upon him for taking a dangerous career, since well, being such a high class space traveller such as he is, is dangerous due to the vastly unexplored space out of their planet, solar system, galaxy, whatever as indicated by the disease he contracts I suggested.

Also, I stick by my notion of this robotization thing should be the biggest problem, rather than enslavement, because it really seems unnecessary, especially in his kind of futuristic world.

(By "it" I meant the robot the mother computer referred to)