No! Repent! From! Harlan! (1998)

> Bottom line: you should work at the level of technology that best does the job. Anything beyond that is nothing but toots and whistles guaranteed to do nothing more than put money in Bill Gates's pocket.

and

> People say to me, "But the computer makes it easier." It shouldn't BE easier!! Art is not supposed to be "easier." Art is supposed to be harder. Commerce should be easy. Friendships should be easy. Good marriages should be easy. Driving a car should be easy. Getting laid should be easy. Art should be DIFFICULT.

really speak to me. We've spent so much time trying to optimize our lives away and I believe it's costing us so much more in the long run. The second point in particular is a big part of why I believe AI (LLMs) being used for artistic fields (creative writing, image generation, etc.) is either a fad or a very unfortunate change in how we interact with the world around us.

"REPENT, HARLEQUIN!" SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN

Nebula Award, Best Short Story 1965

https://files.libcom.org/files/Repent,%20Harlequin%20said%20...

It's entirely the wrong sort of media, but this really ought to be posted on TikTok just for the sake of the title.

Here’s a thread in Ellisons influence on Babylon 5 others may find interesting:

https://old.reddit.com/r/babylon5/comments/rtnxrh/harlan_ell...

To anyone who enjoyed this [Harlan Ellison's Watching - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn5mSh00tKGGwiZ0CsZvW...)

> Amazon.com: You have a new series known collectively as Edgeworks, where you are well into reprinting no less than 31 titles in 20 dual volumes. What makes them any different or special from the original editions, other than availability?

The given answer is mostly bullshit. The real answer seems to be that Ellison's undiagnosed & untreated bipolar disorder had given him both severe depression (so he couldn't write anything new & salable, even if he was not yet bedridden) and worsened his compulsive shopping habit, so his finances were in freefall. Ellison had made a lot of money over the years... and spent it all. Over the next decade even his _Babylon 5_ sinecure from his friend JMS would run out and he'd approach rock bottom (culminating in a firearm suicide attempt):

"Impulse spending sprees are as textbook bipolar as the manic episodes that lead to them, and Harlan’s growing inability to make good decisions began to decimate his savings. Despite a precipitous drop in income in the years after _Babylon 5_, Harlan kept making high-priced impulse purchases of comics, artwork, and collectibles. Susan would tell him, repeatedly, “We don’t have the money.” But the cash went out anyway, leading to panic when the bills came in, often paid with loans from friends, followed by the same reckless spending and crippled decision-making when the financial dust cleared. “He can’t control himself”, Susan said. “I’ve had to hide the credit cards.”"

See JMS's "Ellison Exegesis" in _Last Dangerous Visions_ last year (which points out that 1997 would see the last original volume from Ellison ever, so 1998 is at the top of the slippery slope where his life really began falling apart from bipolar).