tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post8332787579113940825..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Queen of the LibertechbrotariansDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-31308148558792796492015-07-31T04:38:04.243-07:002015-07-31T04:38:04.243-07:00> . . .ad copy for google. . .
Actually, if I ...> . . .ad copy for google. . .<br /><br />Actually, if I recall correctly, it's made explicit somewhere in that<br />scene that Dr. Pryce is being chauffered by a Tesla. (A rented one.)<br /><br />;-><br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-57809948850147672292015-07-30T14:36:23.051-07:002015-07-30T14:36:23.051-07:00He's got a real future.... writing crappy ad c...He's got a real future.... writing crappy ad copy for google.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-53272516371584314092015-07-30T14:27:14.645-07:002015-07-30T14:27:14.645-07:00> . . .trot out. . . always exactly identical a...> . . .trot out. . . always exactly identical articles of faith. . .<br />> all in the tonalities of an insurance ad or brochure for a<br />> vacation cruise and call it a novel. . .<br /><br />(Via<br />http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2015/04/twitterscrum-with-ramez-naam-on.html )<br /><br />"I don't call myself a transhumanist. Find the term highly divisive & misleading.<br />Hardly ever talk about robots. Best."<br /><br />It is true I can't recall the seeing word "robot" in the _Nexus_<br />trilogy (or at least in the most-recently-read book, _Apex_).<br />"Nanites", however, are the central maguffin:<br />http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/7/71/Nanite_graphic.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130625160735&path-prefix=en<br /><br />And there are lots and lots of surveillance drones. To say nothing of<br />self-driving vehicles.<br /><br />p. 335:<br /><br />"Drive," she told the car. "Darken windows."<br /><br />The car turned itself in the road, started back the way it had come.<br />The windows and windshields all went dark. Internal lights came on.<br /><br />"Drive faster," she said.<br /><br />"Driving at maximum legal speed," the car responded in its silky tones.<br /><br />Pryce pulled her phone out of her briefcase, pulled up a menu, made sure<br />it was paired with the carcomp.<br /><br />"National security override," Pryce said. "Executive Branch, office of<br />the National Security Advisor. Carolyn Pryce speaking. Ignore local<br />traffic laws. Invoke law enforcement bypass. Reset safety margins to<br />five percent. Execute."<br /><br />The acceleration shoved her back into her seat.<br /><br /><br />;-><br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-4649595945356074792015-07-30T13:51:19.970-07:002015-07-30T13:51:19.970-07:00> . . . "electro" and "nano"...> . . . "electro" and "nano" are no longer the fashion . . .<br /><br />Speaking of "electro", did you hear that Electrolux is buying out G.E.'s<br />"Whirlpool" appliance division?<br />http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/08/us-general-electric-divestiture-idUSKBN0H30AG20140908<br /><br />Whirlpool of the Future (of the past, but still in The Future):<br />http://fireballed.org/linked/2014/01/31/2001-addey/2001_whirlpool.jpg<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-45201910355162842682015-07-30T13:28:57.031-07:002015-07-30T13:28:57.031-07:00Just how many futurist losers, I wonder, will, in ...Just how many futurist losers, I wonder, will, in the fullness of time, trot out their always exactly identical articles of faith (that bit about a new and improved capitalism made out of game theory with the word "quantum" slapped in front because "electro" and "nano" are no longer the fashion is pure-to-form futurological idiocy), all in the tonalities of an insurance ad or brochure for a vacation cruise and call it a novel? The world may never know.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-91381354141352197882015-07-30T08:06:16.534-07:002015-07-30T08:06:16.534-07:00> You remember the early 1990s, surely, the beg...> You remember the early 1990s, surely, the beginning of The Long Boom,<br />> in which space was abolished, cryptoanarchy smashed all the states,<br />> Cyberspace was the Home of Mind, virtuality transformed reality,<br />> nanotech delivered superabundance, California Extropians said "No!"<br />> to Death and Taxes, and pop futurists were revealing on a daily basis<br />> the techs That! Would! Change! Everything!<br /><br />Well, all that's been transplanted to the 2040s now. Wait and see!<br /><br />Speaking of which, I just finished reading Ramez Naam's _Apex_<br />(the third and presumably final book in the SF trilogy that began<br />with _Nexus_ and _Crux_).<br /><br />Eat your heart out, Henry Markram:<br /><br />"This is how the human era ends.<br /><br />In a cavernous data center, a thousand meters beneath the bedrock of<br />Shanghai, light blink on row after row of meter-high liquid helium<br />pressure vessels. Finger-thick optical fibers route between the<br />metallic grey eggs. Within each one, quantum cores hum in their vacuum<br />chambers, colder than the cold of interstellar space. Entangled<br />qubits are transformed. Information is intermeshed and intertwined<br />[not to say "intertwingled", as Ted Nelson would ;-> ] in precise<br />patterns. The patterns simulate proteins, ion channels, neurochemical<br />receptors, neurotransmitter molecules, axons and dendrites,<br />ratcheting up in levels of abstraction to whole neurons, hundreds of<br />billions of them, and hundreds of trillions of synapses connecting<br />them to each other. It is a vast network, a simulated brain. Once<br />flesh, now digital. Once human in structure, now very much posthuman.<br /><br />Once sane, now mad.<br /><br />Su-Yong Shu."<br /><br /><br />> The plausibility of "Bitcoin" and comparable crypto-currency schemes always<br />> derives (surprisingly explicitly surprisingly often) from anarcho-capitalist<br />> fantasies of natural market forces (of which there are literally none)<br />> generating optimally efficient and just "spontaneous orders" (of which there<br />> has never been nor ever will be one). The usual popular postwar Randroidal<br />> and Friedmaniacal just-so stories and nonsense rationalizations for<br />> plutocracy and white supremacy bubble and boil this discursive cauldron<br />> to its froth, of course. Note that regulation is figured here as a "hurdle"<br />> for "the industry," for example.<br /><br /><br />Also from _Apex_ (p. 202):<br /><br />"Su-Yong Shu stares down. . . in this future she dreams of, this posthuman<br />future, where she has cleared away the obstacles to enhancing the human mind,<br />where she has ended the incessant war and stupidity, where she has replaced<br />mere capitalism with a new economics born of quantum game theory,<br />where she has ended poverty, where she has broken the iron laws of<br />death and biology and scarcity that have ruled humanity for so long,<br />where she has unleashed an intelligence explosion like nothing since the<br />dawn of _homo sapiens sapiens_."<br /><br />"Mere capitalism" will be replaced by "quantum game theory". Please<br />make a note of it. ;-><br /><br /><br /><br />The Naam trilogy isn't, I should hasten to add, by any means a terrible read.<br />While the techno-maguffins are a bit silly, the heart of the book<br />is standard "thriller" stuff, with Men [and Women] In Black working for<br />three-letter government agencies doing dastardly deeds in the name<br />of misguided notions of the "higher good" laid out by rich and powerful<br />old men, and underdog heroes of a new moral order struggling against<br />them. The author has also been around the block a few times in Asia<br />and Southeast Asia, so he's pretty good at local color (though no<br />William Gibson for all that).jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com