S2E31: Enshitification Station

On this week’s meeting of the best Gentlemans Society on Substack, Phisto Sobanii and I discuss his outstanding achievement in getting blocked by over 3k accounts, Skinwalker Americana, Cracker Barrel, embarrassing CringeStacking, the importance of hipsters, and our favorite science fiction. So button up your flannel shirts, adjust your black rimmed glasses, and crack open that limited edition, small batch, IPA from your favorite brewery and vibe with this excellent episode.Thanks for reading Black Ibis Social Club! This post is public so feel free to share it. In this episode I decided to do something different. The day before I asked Phisto Sobanii to make lists of his top 5 favorite Science Fiction movies and novels. I did the same thing, and during our conversation we read our lists and compared our choices. I’m including the lists below, because I highly recommend you read and watch all our choices because the Black Ibis Social Club has outstanding impeccable taste.Phisto’s Top 5 Sci-Fi Films:* 2001: A Space Odessey* Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan* The Fifth Element* Alien* GattacaAlexandru’s Top 5 Sci-Fi Films:* Children of Men* Total Recall* Stalker* The Fifth Element* BladerunnerPhisto’s Top 5 Sci-Fi Novels:* The Last Question* Starship Troopers* 2001: A Space Odessey* Foundation* Leviathan FallsAlexandru’s Top 5 Sci-Fi Novels:* Hyperion* Neuromancer* Dune* Book of the New Sun* Pandora’s StarAll of the novels are linked, the movies aren’t because they are easier to find and with one or two exceptions, I think everyone has seen them. Stalker is the most hipster choice on here, you can find most of Tarkovskys films on HBO streaming. I’m surprised that we only overlapped on one point, The Fifth Element, but like I mentioned on the air, I purposely left out horror scifi, so Alien, Terminator, and The Thing got left out of my list. The Science Fiction topic came up this episode because Phisto Sobanii convinced me to dive back into massive SF novels, so we are now both reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. The book was originally recommended to us by friend of the show, John Carter. I’m not new to supermassive contemporary science fiction, my list does include Hyperion and Pandora’s Star. I’ve read Alastair Reynolds House of Suns, and enjoy his writing. Read with us:When both of us finish Revelation Space, we are going to dedicate a live show to it, so go ahead and read it yourselves and we can all talk about it on an upcoming episode.Black Ibis Social Club is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Black Ibis Social Club at blackibissocialclub.substack.com/subscribe