I'm T. H. Mercer — speculative fiction and essays. Stories where things get hard. People who rise to meet them.
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Service Guarantees Contact
The argument about Starship Troopers is whether the franchise requirement is fascist or aspirational. That’s the wrong question. Service doesn’t select for virtue — it manufactures contact with people you’d never choose. You can’t dehumanize someone who kept you alive. The polarization data after 1973 follows from there.
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The Funeral Was Last Decade
British author median income fell 60% in real terms between 2006 and 2022. The full-time professional writer population halved. The midlist collapsed. ChatGPT shipped in November 2022. One of these things did not cause the others.