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garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Gareth Southwell
@garethsouthwell.bsky.social
1K followers 390 following 1.2K posts
Self-employed writer, illustrator, philosopher. All views are those of my employer. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Runs woodpigpress.com, woodpigpress.bsky.social

Sci-fi, philosophy and illustration: garethsouthwell.com

Diary of a Micro-Press: https://woodpigpress.substack.com/
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garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Gareth Southwell @garethsouthwell.bsky.social · Jun 7
Please share:

Do you hate AI?

Are you an editor, proofreader, designer, illustrator, typesetter, marketer, book blogger, audio narrator, reviewer, ARC/beta reader?

WoodPig Press is creating a pool of freelancers for future paid work.

woodpigpress.com/call-for-pub...

#booksky #books #publishing
Reposted by Gareth Southwell
adamjfarrer.bsky.social
I have seen the greatest minds of my generation radicalised into flat earth trutherism by the comment section of a Smashing Pumpkins Facebook fan page.
November 14, 2025 at 8:44 AM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
People come by the house and they're like, "Ooh, I like your Halloween cobwebs!" And I'm like, "Hallo-what, now?"
October 26, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Gareth Southwell
veronicarothbooks.com
When people ask me what I think about using AI in writing I’m going to send them this screenshot
A screenshot of a post that reads David Simon, creator of *The Wire*, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro, NPR And then a screenshot of a conversation that goes like this: SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
October 12, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Gareth Southwell
nytopinion.nytimes.com
Mark Zuckerberg has a vision for how A.I. could be used in Meta's universe.

But the actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt is here to point out a flaw in the technology: an apparent lack of guardrails around how the company's chatbot interacts with underage users. nyti.ms/3ILwCNo
September 30, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Gareth Southwell
michaelje67.bsky.social
Well said, Gary Neville! 👏
October 5, 2025 at 6:27 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Wonderful comment on this on Instagram which sums up how I feel.
October 2, 2025 at 8:29 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Oh, dear. Is it just me that has a bad feeling about this? I've been using Affinity programmes for years, and they're great. But anything that mentions "the future" gives off an aura of bullshit and AI flangery.

#AI #art #books
"Creative freedom is coming". Affinity announcement.
October 2, 2025 at 3:33 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
It's ironic how when a big, faceless corporation treats you like you're not a person, you can't help but take it personally.

#philosophy #books #AI
October 2, 2025 at 12:03 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Sad to hear philosopher John Searle has died. Big influence on my PhD, a wonderfully clear thinker and his views on consciousness are more important now than ever. That said, I found his atheism shallow and the sexual harassment thing tarnishes his reputation. Anyway, bon voyage!

#philosophy #books
September 29, 2025 at 3:36 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
I ran a poll on Mastodon and Bluesky asking who'd read a book where the author used AI to some extent. Combining the results: of the 56 respondents, 82% said never, 16% said only if AI was used for editing, and 1% said they didn't care as long as it was a good book.

#books #writing #AI #reading
September 24, 2025 at 12:28 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
I've just written an article on Stoicism for Welldoing, a UK-based site where you can find the right therapist for you:

welldoing.org/article/stoi...

#philosophy #stoicism #writing #books #booksky
Stoicism: Why Be Lucky When You Can Be Happy?
Author Gareth Southwell explores Stoic attitudes to happiness, luck, control and uncertainty
welldoing.org
September 23, 2025 at 7:05 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
My review of Steven Shwartz's "Evil Robots, Killer Computers, and Other Myths". A great, well-informed little book from a Silicon Valley sceptic.

garethsouthwell.substack.com/p/evil-robot...

#AI #philosophy #books #reviews #booksky
BOOK REVIEW: “Evil Robots, Killer Computers, and Other Myths” by Steven Shwartz
Why Technogeddon is Overhyped.
garethsouthwell.substack.com
September 23, 2025 at 3:33 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Book cover design and illustration for Clif Haley's comedy Western, "Emory Crider and the One Dollar Bounty".

garethsouthwell.com/book-design-...

#books #illustration #art #covers #booksky
Book cover design and illustration for Clif Haley's "Emory Crider and the One Dollar Bounty"
September 23, 2025 at 12:03 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Dear book marketer, thanks so much for your email, and for your eloquent praise of my book. You were "profoundly moved", you say? I am flattered - and doubly so that you've taken the trouble to hunt me down all the way from ... [checks website visitor stats] ... oh.

#books #writing #AI #booksky
September 22, 2025 at 3:33 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
It's coming up that time of year again, so it seems an opportune moment to post an old article on happiness and the seaons:

garethsouthwell.substack.com/p/can-we-be-...

#philosophy #books #happiness booksky
Can We Be Happy?
The autumn equinox marks the point where – here in the northern hemisphere – having been held briefly in balance, the days begin to shorten and the nights extend as we commence the journey into…
garethsouthwell.substack.com
September 22, 2025 at 12:03 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
I didn't know this was a thing! Exciting!

www.imdb.com/title/tt3151...

#books #scifi #williamgibson #neuromancer #booksky
Neuromancer (TV Series) | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Neuromancer: Created by J.D. Dillard, Graham Roland. With Callum Turner, Briana Middleton, Peter Sarsgaard, Marc Menchaca. A damaged hacker named Case, thrust into digital espionage and high stakes…
www.imdb.com
September 21, 2025 at 12:03 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Interesting long piece by Michael Moorcock on the right-wing views implicit in Golden Age fantasy and science fiction. Moorcock anarchism/libertarianism colour everything, but he's very knowledgeable and well read.

libcom.org/article/star...

#books #sff #scifi #reading #writing #booksky
Starship Stormtroopers: Michael Moorcock
An essay by Michael Moorcock on the saturation of Fascistic and authoritarian themes and messages in Science Fiction literature.
libcom.org
September 20, 2025 at 12:03 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Reading Peter de Vries' wonderful "Reuben, Reuben" and came across a passage about how places are named after the natural features they've destroyed, which exactly parallels something I'd written in "MUNKi. This ever happen to you?

#books #writing #philosophy

garethsouthwell.com/books/munki/
Excerpt from "Reuben, Reuben", by Peter de Vries: "Out there are also the subdivisions named, by God, after what the contractors had to eradicate to build them - Birch Hills (named after the grove bulldozed away preparatory to laying the foundation), Vineyard Acres after the rows of Concord grapes plowed under to make way for them." Excerpt from "MUNKi" by Gareth J. Southwell: "And so by the January preceding Tadcu's death they'd swapped a seaonally gloomy Port Talbot for a similarly dank and chilly Guildford; for an up-market estate whose streets, each an architectural sibling of the next, commemorated the various glades, groves and natural features bulldozed to build them, leaving as its sole attraction its prime position within the commuter belt."
September 19, 2025 at 7:05 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Great post about John Carpenter's classic sci-fi horror The Thing, the novel that inspired it, and the problematic man that wrote it, by Alex Worley (whose Substack is well worth subscribing to).

alecworley.substack.com/p/science-fi...

#books #scifi #horror #reviews #booksky
Who Goes There? (1938) vs The Thing (1982)
John W. Campbell's classic novella of Golden Age science fiction and John Carpenter's modern horror masterpiece - both absorb new meanings in the age of Covid, identity politics and generative AI
alecworley.substack.com
September 19, 2025 at 3:33 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Doing a little cultural anthropology into the Christian concept of Hell, surprisingly you find that it is built on philosophy.

garethsouthwell.substack.com/p/a-brief-hi...

#philosophy #books #booksky
A Brief History of Hell
Whether or not Hell is a real place, its geography in the popular imagination owes much (indirectly) to philosophy. The basis of this is the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s account of the various…
garethsouthwell.substack.com
September 19, 2025 at 12:03 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Book review of Meghan O'Gieblyn's "God, Human, Animal, Machine", a subtle analysis of the overlap between spirituality and technology, and how a strange new religion is emerging from Silicon Valley.

garethsouthwell.substack.com/p/god-human-...

#books #reviews #scifi #philosophy #booksky
“God, Human, Animal, Machine” by Meghan O’Gieblyn
Caught Between Competing Stories in a Disenchanted World.
garethsouthwell.substack.com
September 18, 2025 at 7:05 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
Cover design for my sci-fi comedy novella Pale Kings. I spent quite a while trying to give the virtual mermaids a sort of degraded, retro, cathode ray TV look. Not sure if I could remember how to do it now!

garethsouthwell.com/books/pale-k...

#books #illustration #coverdesign #scifi #art #booksky
Book cover illustration for Pale Kings by Gareth Southwell. A man floats in water with VR glasses surrounded by virtual mermaids. Mermaid mermaid fin mermaid
September 18, 2025 at 3:33 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
I've been thinking exactly this. I'm quite sceptical about politics, but I care about all these things. The people voting Reform have no idea what they're voting for.
alasdaircameron.bsky.social Alasdair Cameron @alasdaircameron.bsky.social · Sep 18
This is why the government needs to fight reform. Reform/Farage have many unpopular positions, but people don't hear about them.

1) Putin fanboys, wobbly on Ukraine, wobbly on defence.
2) Climate sceptics.
3) Pro fracking the countryside
4) Pro fox hunting
5) In favour of privatising NHS
gregorynorminton.bsky.social Gregory Norminton @gregorynorminton.bsky.social · Sep 18
Vast majority of UK voters want ramped up action on climate change. Vast majority despise Trump. And yet the UK's Trump tribute act is leading in the polls. WTF.
September 18, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Gareth Southwell
alasdaircameron.bsky.social
This is why the government needs to fight reform. Reform/Farage have many unpopular positions, but people don't hear about them.

1) Putin fanboys, wobbly on Ukraine, wobbly on defence.
2) Climate sceptics.
3) Pro fracking the countryside
4) Pro fox hunting
5) In favour of privatising NHS
September 18, 2025 at 12:38 PM
garethsouthwell.bsky.social
#philosophy #books #booksky
A professor of mine went to go hear Derrida speak once. The entire talk was about cows; everyone was flummoxed but listened carefully, and took notes about…cows. There was a short break, and when Derrida came back, he was like, ‘I’m told it is pronounced “chaos”.’ – Phil Gentry, Twitter
September 18, 2025 at 12:03 PM