16 KiB
[HSF] After Life - Simon Funk
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Author: u/None *
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Score: 9
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Created: 2014-03-01T15:39:48
Post:
Comments:
u/FeepingCreature [+6] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (23 hours later)
Reading now.
Chapter 1
That prank would not have worked if you'd just chosen a "trust me" password in advance. Stupid.
-Man, this really wants to be a movie.
Chapter 2
Wait, apparently this is our setting now? Okay? Okay.
Chapter 3
They didn't. They did not. Oh come on. (I might be slightly skipping through this.)
Chapter 5
They realize this is rape, right. They do, right.
Chapter 6
No wonder he doesn't realize the answer. The answer is insane. (Or practical, depending on how it works.) But he should have at least thought of it.
Chapter 7
OH NOW he thinks of it. Late, champ.
Chapter 9
Promising title, at least. Maybe we can get some sense back into this story.
Why would you use physics for that?!
Chapter 10
Finally some answers here.
Chapter 11
Where the fuck is here?! Please tell me this is not the afterlife bugging out. (The name of the story worries me in that regard.)
Chapter 12
A house. Okay.
Oooohoo. Clever monkey.
Chapter 13
It's somehow adorably catlike.
[note] I still have absolutely no idea where this is going.
Chapter 14
I'm way more comfortable with this setting. At least I understand what's going on.
Chapter 15
And I'm confused again.
Chapter 16
Name-drop Alcor. Nice.
Chapter 17
Oh What. What. Also Catlike Robothing is just the dorbest.
Chapter 18
This is the most clear description of Patternism that I have ever seen.
-God module. Snort.
Chapter 19
This is the first chapter that I have to scientifically disagree with. There's a bit more variation to it than that, you know. (Lord, deliver us from the Evopsych just-so stories...)
Chapter 20
Well, this seems unfriendly. They're surprisingly hands-off, considering.
Chapter 21
This is the most utilitarian definition of love I have ever seen.
Chapter 22
This really reminds me of Bioshock Infinite.
Up to
Chapter 24
and you still haven't explained what that place is. Better hurry up.
.... Okay. Okay, what.
WHY WOULD YOU NOT USE A SIMULATION.
Chapter 25. "Closure"
WELL NAMED YOU FUCKS. Man, what a hook. Can't fault you though.
Okay.
In summary.
Nice.
Niiiice.
Kind of a UFAI story, of course. Not very ethical. Not very CEV. Kind of genocide. I can't fault th-- wait, yes, they're humans, I can totally fault them. Can't fault the realism of it though. I like to tell myself I wouldn't do this, but we all know how malleable humans are under power.
So.
Cool future. Let's hope it never comes to pass.
u/IWillNotLie [+1] (12 hours later)
I highly recommend this one! When I read this for the first time, I was extremely amazed! This story kind of changed how I look at the world and my consciousness.
u/None [+0] (20 hours later)
I'm a busy nerd. What's this novella about?
u/IWillNotLie [+2] (21 hours later)
Basically, a guy uploads his consciousness to a computer and the computer becomes sentient. Can't say anything else or I'll spoil the twists in the story.
u/None [+3] (21 hours later)
Basically, a guy uploads his consciousness to a computer and the computer becomes sentient.
What? Again?
Can't say anything else or I'll spoil the twists in the story.
I mean, ok, fair enough, but mostly I just want some indication to answer how much fun I will have reading this novella.
u/IWillNotLie [+3] (21 hours later)
I'm not sure how much fun you will have, but I sure as hell did. I couldn't stop talking about it for weeks after reading it.
u/FeepingCreature [+3] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (a day later)
Okay, I read it and I can confirm that, as much as I'd question the plausibility of some of the decisions, it's 100% materialistic. No consciousness shenanigans going on, no mysticism behind the mystery. Not sure if I enjoyed it; it's an interesting glimpse into a honestly p terrifying future, in a sort of Lovecraftian way, and it doesn't really say anything novel to people in this subreddit. Made me smile though. Well-executed at the least.
It's about the slowest-ever human-bootstrapped non-friendly GAI singularity.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (3 days later)
Why are you terrified of it?
u/FeepingCreature [+3] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (3 days later)
It's a non-friendly GAI singularity. That commits genocide.
This is bad.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (3 days later)
When does it commit genocide? It halts breeding, that's not the same as committing genocide.
Also if you're going to make genocide be defined like that then you're going to have to justify why it's bad.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (3 days later)
When does it commit genocide? It halts breeding, that's not the same as committing genocide.
Yyyyeah it is. To quote WP:
[Genocide is] a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.
Also if you're going to make genocide be defined like that then you're going to have to justify why it's bad.
Because as humans, we value humans to exist? Idk, at least I do.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (3 days later)
That doesn't seem like anything rational. Transhumanism is dead common in future scifi.
How do you jusitfy valuing humans over say sentience
u/FeepingCreature [+1] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (3 days later)
I'm ... a human? I think it's pretty normal for humans to value humans. And in any case, this is not some sort of trading-off - it's just "lol let's stop humans from breeding because we fucked up our intelligence enhancement and are now monstrous".
u/RMcD94 [+1] (4 days later)
I think it's pretty normal for humans to value humans
Sure but I'm also a guy that doesn't mean I value guys more than girls.
There's no reason I should value humans over other sentient beings.
You're not exactly rationally explaining this either.
it's just "lol let's stop humans from breeding because we fucked up our intelligence enhancement and are now monstrous".
Depends on your definition of monstrous, considering most of the humans switched to avatar bodies and also took the upgrades can't be that bad. Seems to me that the world was better there was way more life on it.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/None [+1] (a day later)
read read read
spoiled
Oh Lord. Is there some mood people get in where they start looking for all the possible ways that things we like can destroy us? Seriously: I don't even have good genetics; my ancestors are inbred as fuck and my fiancee is a wonderful person but also a carrier for several heritable illnesses. I'd pay money just to be able to have a normal, healthy child at all, let alone a superhumanly loveable child!
God fucking dammit people. How likely is it that fun will actually kill you versus that some scifi author will think it a really intriguing premise (read: a "subversion" of your usual expectations, except that most societies are so anti-fun that it's actually a repetition of usual social expectations) to write a story about how fun kills you?
EDIT: my conscious mind just noticed to whom I was replying. This comment just got 20% more applicable... you evil person.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
It wasn't so much the fun itself, as it was Spoiler
u/None [+1] (a day later)
That distinction is so subtle as to be useless. One of the pleasant things about the rationalist movement is supposed to be its blatant pro-transhumanist propaganda and its refusal to stoop down to having everything go horribly wrong all the time.
(I'm trying to find David Brin's blog post about this dead horse of a trope, and failing. Better stop hung-overingly redditing and get ready for work.)
Mind, one of these days I'd like to see a rationalist author so clever and creative that they don't even have to stoop down to things going horribly right. One of the great reliefs of reading HPMoR, say, as opposed to many of /u/EliezerYudkowsky's short scifi works posted on LW, or as opposed to /u/iceman-p's fic, is that you know the magic system keeps everything contained roughly in the domain where it takes a lot of really deliberate Munchkining to blot the stars out of Heaven, and won't just happen by default because some idiot said, "Oh wow, I wish ."
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Point taken. Sounds like Yvain's "Against Dystopias". I don't think if I'd call it a dystopia or "gone horribly right" , but it's been a while since I've read it and YMMV.
Let me know if you find that essay!
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Ok, I now need to say: /u/Yvain, I freaking love you and want to grow up to be like you.
Mind, I think the "standard dystopias" are more of a problem in reality than in fiction (let's face it: North Korea is a problem), but in fiction they're just such a cheap way of creating conflict.
That, or Agent Smith was partially right, and some large subset of the human race really do define their existence by pain, suffering, and general horribleness. I'm not sure what we're going to have to do with such people.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (a day later)
God fucking dammit people. How likely is it that fun will actually kill you
If there is a real issue, annoyance will not protect you from it. Nor will it help you discover whether the issue is real.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
True statement, but the problem is that I simply don't have any significant degree of belief that video games, cute babies, candy bars, or anything else will wipe out the human race by being too fun to handle. Hell, the vast majority of video games, babies, and candy bars don't even damage the lives of their "users", and addictive "superstimuli" often affect only people with some predisposed vulnerability to addiction.
And I hate to say this, but the very fact that those with a predisposition to life-crippling addictions wipe themselves out before reproducing... yeah. It's a selection pressure. Over time, the human species is probably getting less vulnerable to addiction precisely because addiction sufferers reproduce at significantly lower rates. Cold but true.
So, uh, yeah. If someone wants me to believe in the genocidal dangers of "superstimulus" (a term which could use a more precise scientific definition, since I tend to regard evo-psych as a suspicious semi-science), they're going to need to show me a significant amount of very good evidence that I have yet to see.
Until then, I will continue enjoying fun and exercising moderation just like most of the rest of the species.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (3 days later)
they're going to need to show me a significant amount of very good evidence that I have yet to see.
Skinner box experiments?
Not that anything you could do physically is likely to cause it, but just hitting the button in your brain.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
You don't make a good case for the existence of superstimuli by attempting to hot-wire my brain.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (3 days later)
Okay well I'd like you to ask to define superstimuli since the Wikipedia article has it already as accepted fact that somethings are superstimuli.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus#In_Psychology
In reference to genocide I'm not seeing how hotwiring your brain is not causing genocide, mass willing suicide of the entire human race because they give up everything for stimulating their brain.
u/autowikibot [+1] (3 days later)
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#### Section 3. In Psychology of article Supernormal stimulus:
Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett argues that supernormal stimulation govern the behavior of humans as powerfully as that of animals. In her 2010 book, Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose, she examines the impact of supernormal stimuli on the diversion of impulses for nurturing, sexuality, romance, territoriality, defense, and the entertainment industry’s hijacking of our social instincts. In the earlier book, Waistland, she explains junk food as an exaggerated stimulus to cravings for salt, sugar, and fats and television as an exaggeration of social cues of laughter, smiling faces and attention-grabbing action. Modern artifacts may activate instinctive responses which evolved in a world without magazine centerfolds or double cheeseburgers, where breast development was a sign of health and fertility in a prospective mate, and fat was a rare and vital nutrient.
^Interesting: ^Fixed ^action ^pattern ^| ^Evolutionary ^psychology ^| ^Neuroethology ^| ^Julodimorpha
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u/RMcD94 [+1] (3 days later)
My comment on chapter 14 is that sticking to a bipedal robot it just so goddamn dumb. Robocopters are the way to go, get yourself a dozen remote control quadcopters and be way better at moving
u/None [+2] (5 days later)
Nah, everyone knows giant spiders are the way to go.