All posts tagged: Strife

How Empedocles Used Love and Strife to Explain the Universe

Published by Sam Flores

Summary The universe is driven by two core forces: Love unites elements, while Strife separates them. Reality is composed of four fundamental roots: earth, air, fire, and water, which are eternally mixed and divided. A cosmic cycle dictates reality, with Love and Strife continuously alternating in their dominance over the universe. Conflict is necessary for existence; Strife creates the distinct forms and individuals that make up our world. Show more The Ancient Greeks saw the universe as unstable, full of change and drama. They thought reality itself was dynamic. They believed that everything was constantly shifting and that nothing remained constant: cities could rise and then crumble, seasons would change, and friendships would begin and end. In this ever-changing world stepped Empedocles, an amazing thinker from early Greek philosophy. In fact, he was more than just a philosopher. He is also considered a poet, physician, and politician. Historical accounts indicate that he even wore clothes fitting for a prophet. Empedocles and a Universe Made From Four Elements Landscape With Ceres (Allegory of Earth), Jan Brueghel the Younger, 1630s. Source: Artvee …

Adrian Tchaikovsky on Children of Strife: ‘I try and do interesting aliens’

Published by skeptic

Speculative evolution is an “amazing treasure chest of possibilities” – Adrian Tchaikovsky Tom Pepperdine Adrian Tchaikovsky published his first book, the fantasy novel Empire in Black and Gold, in 2008. He turned to science fiction in 2015 with Children of Time, a far-future story of the accelerated evolution of Portia labiate spiders on a terraformed planet far from Earth. It was the first in a series which would go on to win Tchaikovsky prizes including the Arthur C Clarke Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award. Now he divides his writing time between science fiction and fantasy, with the fourth book in the Children of Time series, Children of Strife, out on 26 March. He joined head of books Alison Flood to talk about its protagonist – a human-sized mantis shrimp – and what could have inspired its terrifyingly awful villain. Alison Flood: You studied zoology at university, right? The Children of Time series and its evolved animals feels like the perfect area for you to be writing in… Adrian Tchaikovsky: In all honesty, …

Iran’s Azeris fear ethnic strife, sucking Turkey and Azerbaijan into the war

Published by Sam Flores

Over the past few months, Ehsan Hosseinzadeh, like many Iranians in the diaspora, had come to believe a foreign military intervention was necessary to help his people oust an Islamic regime that was oppressing and massacring innocent civilians. But a week after Israel and the US launched a war in his home country, the 38-year-old refugee in France is worried about the conflict dragging in regional powers – to the detriment of Iran and its citizens. Hosseinzadeh has every reason to fear a conflagration erupting along ethnic, religious and civilizational fault lines that could rip open the wounds of history in an ancient land. Born in Urmia – a city in the northwestern extremity of Iran that shares borders with Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Iraq – Hosseinzadeh understands a thing or two about the explosive mix of identity and grievance. An ethnic Azeri (also called Azerbaijani and Azerbaijani-Turkish in Iran) Hosseinzadeh belongs to the largest minority community, constituting around 24% of Iran’s 93 million population. His birthplace is also home to a significant Kurdish population, …

Children of Strife review: Adrian Tchaikovsky’s new Children of Time novel is brilliant

Published by skeptic

Now imagine this mantis shrimp in a spacesuit, with a taste for weaponry Shutterstock/Samy Kassem The fourth novel in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s much fêted Children of Time series is nearly with us. And Children of Strife is terrific. Before we get to it in detail, let me say that I will do my best to avoid spoilers for all four books. Science fiction about “uplifted” species isn’t an original idea, but Tchaikovsky tackles it in an entirely original way. As fans will know, the first book in the series (Children of Time) involved an ark ship finally reaching a terraformed planet. In theory, the world should have been ready to receive the settlers, but, oh dear… has something gone horribly wrong? Has a different species been elevated into the top spot intended for humans? I think it is OK to mention spiders here. In the also-brilliant follow-up, Children of Ruin, a different planet is featured, and here I will just drop in the word “octopuses“. Tchaikovsky is a prolific writer, with many wonderful books, but this …

Shackle and strife

Published by Daniella Wilson

Add Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing to your watchlist I’ve had my share of enforced proximity. I once spent six long nights on the Trans-Siberian Railway, all of them sharing a carriage with a Russian fellow who spoke not a word of English. Every day we spent in our own corners; every evening we passed in quick games of silent, happy chess (I barely took a rook). At least we weren’t handcuffed, unlike the contestants of Channel 4’s latest “competition meets social experiment” Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing, in which nine pairs of strangers are thus shackled day and night for several weeks, to see if they can survive, and even – fetch the hanky – learn to love one another. Involuntary handcuffing with an unlikely friend has long been a go-to on screen. From the moment Richard Gere’s cop and Kim Basinger’s runaway were locked together in the thriller No Mercy, it was only a matter of time before the squabbling gave way to snuggling. More memorably, The Defiant Ones saw prison inmates Tony Curtis and …

Di Rosa Art Center Lists Estate for .9 M. Amid Financial Strife

Di Rosa Art Center Lists Estate for $10.9 M. Amid Financial Strife

Published by José Betancourt

The di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, a beloved art park in Naples, California, that is in the midst of a prolonged period of financial difficulty, has listed its estate for $10.9 million, according a report by the San Francisco Chronicle from last weekend. The park is host to a range of notable works by Northern California artists from the postwar era, most notably an iconic Mark di Suvero sculpture that presides over the 217-acre estate. Also included in its collection are important pieces by Peter Saul, Robert Arneson, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, and Deborah Butterfield, many of them purchased by the park’s founder, the collector Rene di Rosa and his wife Veronica, who died in 2010 and 1991, respectively. Related Articles Ever since 2019, the center has been attempting to rectify a shaky financial situation behind the scenes. That year, the di Rosa announced that it would no longer purchase artworks for its collection and that it would begin the process of selling its holdings. The announcement was met with such sharp condemnation from …

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