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San Francisco, 6:50 AM
Sun Nov 8
10 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/10/09
08/09/09
Not to mention that the concept of a pair of mirrored shades that are connected to the internet at all times are probably only about ten years or so down the road, unlike jacking which is probably far later, if ever, and the additional things you could do with the glasses (a HUD, for example.)
08/09/09
08/09/09
What if the Singularity happens, forgets about us and leaves us a bit "uh, was that all?".
08/09/09
08/09/09
Maybe all sci fi writers should avoid setting their tales post 2012, because...well...you know.
08/09/09
Basically, the problem is the Internet. Or really, the fact that so few authors, if any, saw it coming. At all.
It all seems obvious to us now, of course, but I remember back in '94-'95 or so, when I first took NCSA Mosiac for a spin and was amazed that I didn't have to log into a shell account. It was all new, and it was something that was nowhere in most of the SF anyone had ever written. (And yes, I can think of some exceptions. Make a game of it, it's really neat.) I think I read Vinge's "A Fire upon the Deep" later that year and it's descriptions of far-future post-singular societies using random messages in chat rooms as the basis for organizing fleet actions already seemed quaint.
Science Fiction has been around long enough that we know that this kind of thing actually common place. Everyone's read books where sentient robots used slide-rules to calculate orbits or we have orbital colonies in the far off year 1980. We laugh it off, and say "Oh, they were so naive back then! But now we all know better."
Or at least we could laugh it off, if anyone had seen the Internet coming. There it is, the proof that we're just as clueless about the future as our forebears, sitting right in the middle of the chatroom, taunting us for not giving a character email in 1992. For giving elite space rangers communicators that are worse than the cell-phone/ipod/pda in our pockets.
So this time, we're not going to screw it up! The Singularity feels so like the next big thing that should happen, just like that moon-base we were all certain was right around the corner. And this time, a lot of writers are determined to be right about it.
This time, for sure!
08/08/09
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08/08/09
The idea that the technological singularity is the only possible future is a failure of the imagination and a cop out.
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08/08/09
I love the fact that io9 actually discusses trends in science fiction and asks hard questions like this. Not loving so much the distinctly cynical tone, complete with hyperbolic descriptions like "ruining" and "backlash." And yes, I happen to like posthuman fiction. What of it? I also happen to like toast; in fact, I have toast for breakfast probably 90% of the time. That doesn't mean I'm always going to want to eat toast, nor does it mean that I feel like I can't eat oatmeal because that would betray the toast's inevitability.
Assuming for the moment that the Singularity is inevitable (not saying that it is or not), it doesn't follow that this precludes any other type of science fiction. Science fiction has never been about portraying science or even the future accurately. As Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in her preface to The Left Hand of Darkness, "Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive." If posthuman science fiction happens to be popular right now, that's because it's selling, because the market of science fiction readers find it attractive. Perhaps this is simply the current zeitgeist and, as the other io9 anti-singularity article points out, the pendulum will swing back in the other direction.
And yes, we are closer to the Singularity now than we were twenty years ago. But that's just because time only moves in one direction (at least from our limited human perspective), and thus anything in the future will always be closer to us in the present than it was in the past.
I would hope that, of any demographic, science fiction fans would be the most willing to embrace diversity. Encourage alternative types of science fiction, by all means, but don't discourage Singularity fiction by constantly complaining about posthumanist novels.
08/08/09
Like I said, I'm aiming to report what other people said, more than making some point of my own. But I would disagree with your main point: if you, as a writer, believe that the Singularity *is* inevitable, then it's silly to write SF set in a future where the Singularity doesn't happen. At that point, you're just writing alternate history, only set in the future. Which is a very weird niche to be in. I agree that SF doesn't have to be predictive, and in fact seldom is. But most SF writers at least try to be true to what they believe the future may be like. Consciously writing about a future you're certain won't happen seems like an odd way to go about it.
08/08/09
So the Singularity is a single defining moment that revolutionizes the way humankind lives on, rivaled only by the discovery of fire and electricity? Four words: stupidly convenient writing device.
Bringing all technological improvement down to one single moment is insulting to the entire scientific process. That's an act of God, not an engineering marvel.
I suppose you could point out the discoveries of fire and electricity, but they wouldn't have been worth shit if we didn't try to DO things with it. We didn't discover fire and then say "BAM! Combustible engine, bitch!" Science just doesn't work like that.
Of course, you could also bring up the argument that God and science are not mutually exclusive in which case... fuck this, my head hurts.
Bottom line: we're not going to see FTL travel in the next 20 years. We'd need to colonize planets outside our own solar system to make that necessary and I don't see THAT happening in the next 20 years, either. Maybe Mars or Luna. Maybe.
Until then, though, writing about FTL or teleporters being developed in the next 20 years will remind me somewhat of locking a cheetah into a 12x12 cage. Sure, you now own the fastest land animal. You've also locked it into a cage that it can barely jog in. Congratulations. You're an asshole.
(Please tell me no one is going to take this uber serious. I'm joking. Kind of.)
08/08/09
Second, I don't believe we would need to colonize extra-solar planets for FTL. We would just need to be able to travel between our own planets to have the practical experience and technology to begin experimenting with FTL. FTL would be necessary to even try leaving the solar system in a feasible manner.
08/08/09
...Fuck you and your points.
I'm glad you got a laugh out of that. I got a chuckle out of writing it.
08/08/09
Or, put another way, Jules Verne did fine knowing little of quantum mechanics.
08/08/09