9.9 KiB
[RT] We’re going to be living in computers one way or another
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Author: u/psychothumbs *
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URL: https://aciddc.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/were-going-to-be-living-in-computers-one-way-or-another/
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Score: 27
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Created: 2015-09-15T18:01:21
Post:
Comments:
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (36 minutes later)
u/psychothumbs [+3] (an hour later)
I've heard Ra is great but never actually read it. What's the connection?
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
Read it.
u/traverseda [+5] With dread but cautious optimism (2 hours later)
Read it.
Don't read it, work in Important stuff instead.
But this does read a lot like it should be the first chapter of Ra.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+7] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 hours later)
Prequelish, definitely.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate (17 hours later)
It never really grabbed me.
Got as far as the giant egg thing.
u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (20 hours later)
Isn't the giant egg thing from Fine Structure?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+5] Roll the Dice on Fate (20 hours later)
Maybe? Which one has the woman learning programming-magic and going into a semi-conceptual space that fills with nightmares made reality?
u/holomanga [+3] (21 hours later)
Yeah, that's Ra.
Though there is also an egg thing in Fine Structure. I guess Sam just likes powerful eggs.
u/MugaSofer [+1] (a day later)
The giant egg thing?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)
u/MugaSofer [+1] (2 days later)
Oh! Yeah, I remember that thing. I'd forgotten it was egg-shaped.
It's ... actually something fairly interesting.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (2 days later)
I know, but I didn't want to spoil it for others.
u/Drazelic [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (2 hours later)
u/psychothumbs [+2] (2 hours later)
Oh man, to read the spoilers or not to read the spoilers. I can sort of guess the direction based on what my story is about, but am still reluctant to spoil myself. Decisions, decisions...
Any Ra fans want to chime in on whether it's a good idea?
u/traverseda [+6] With dread but cautious optimism (4 hours later)
/u/sam512 ended the story on a controversial, but realistic, note. It's not the most satisfactory ending, although I wouldn't call it bad. I think he mentioned burning out on fiction a bit, and it's not what I'd consider his best work.
If you're going to read stuff on qntm, read through his short stories, or the ed stories, of fine structure.
I'd read the spoiler, personally.
u/psychothumbs [+2] (4 hours later)
Okay, read it. Does fit pretty exactly with my story haha.
u/notmy2ndopinion [+3] Concent of Saunt Edhar (8 hours later)
Especially the bit on how biologicals still resemble virtuals so much that we, the readers, view them as practically identical!
Sam's Ra spoilers that the ending comes off as unsatisfactory because it's so far from our current reality.
I love how the biological is called an "old-timey racist" for being non-PC about virtuals. it added a nice centering point that no matter how much things change, human nature still remains the same about the Other.
edit: whoops spoiler formatting fixed!
u/None [+2] (17 hours later)
I love how the biological is called an "old-timey racist" for being non-PC about virtuals. it added a nice centering point that no matter how much things change, human nature still remains the same about the Other.
Is it just me, or does that sound kinda like someone missed the point of the whole "you're transhuman now, re-engineer yourself" thing?
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (19 hours later)
In what way? Because the existence of uploading is exactly the sort of circumstance where human nature would not be universal?
That may be so, but even AIs wouldn't reprogram themselves without wanting to. What is there to gain from adjusting that particular mental slider?
u/None [+2] (20 hours later)
Lack of holy wars of extermination, I would have thought. Xenophobia has been one the greatest evils constantly plaguing human history!
u/None [+2] (22 hours later)
It's the principal of the thing. You can choose to not let that be capable of offending you, but then the meatbags win.
u/None [+1] (22 hours later)
Choose... to not let... genocide offend me? I must be misunderstanding something here: please explain.
And "meatbags"? There are plenty of grown-up species who choose to live in meat. Who are you to deny them?
u/None [+2] (22 hours later)
I was making a joke about retooling one's facilities to not be offended by biological slurs are similar to not being bothered by racism/sexism in the contemporary. Obviously, not a point for point comparison, but I thought it was funny.
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
Yeah, but we're only exterminating people who deserve it :P
u/psychothumbs [+2] (a day later)
Heh, isn't that always how it goes?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
REMOVE EXTERMINATUS REMOVE EXTERMINATUS you are worst empirium u r the imperium idiot you are the god-emperor smell.
u/notmy2ndopinion [+1] Concent of Saunt Edhar (a day later)
are you suggesting that a) I missed the point, or that b) biologicals missed the point, because like racists, they are afraid of someone different from them?
Neither I nor biologicals are transhumans, so perhaps we aren't able to "engineer" ourselves to your liking.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Well, I had thought the character in question was transhuman, and had thus Failed At Life by maintaining the bugs in "human nature" well past their sell-by date.
u/notmy2ndopinion [+1] Concent of Saunt Edhar (a day later)
Hm. I thought it was a conversation between two biological humans, one of whom was slightly more knowledgeable about ems, but they were communicating in VR. Although, one or both of them could have totally been an em and I would not have been the wiser.
u/psychothumbs [+1] (a day later)
Your interpretation is correct. Perhaps /u/eaturbrainz meant that even biologicals would have modified themselves by this point?
Word of God: in this setting most biologicals are extensively genetically modified, but mostly not that far out from an impressive unmodified human, and mostly just various more straightforward improvements, not trying to alter their brains to be less prone to tribalism or anything like that.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+2] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (8 hours later)
Now read Ra. On the plus side with that spoiler you'll want to re-read it at least one less time than if you hadn't had the spoiler. Though t you most likely will decide to re-read it a few times anyways.
u/kaukamieli [+1] (8 days later)
You can keep an upload going in the absolute lap of virtual luxury for the amount of electricity it costs to simulate their brain. Now admittedly VR means things are pretty cheap for us too, but it’s still orders of magnitude more. The population’s growing exponentially these days, pretty much as fast as they can manufacture more computers for uploads to live on.
You can keep an upload going in the absolute lap of virtual luxury for the amount of electricity it costs to simulate their brain.
This is not a fixed cost. You can use slower, less power hungry computers.
The population’s growing exponentially these days, pretty much as fast as they can manufacture more computers for uploads to live on.
Still too limited hard drive space? o.O For processors, you can just divide the processor time for everyone. They will not notice a difference unless you give them a window to "the real world". Wasn't there an XKCD about this guy who simulated an universe with moving small stones?
u/psychothumbs [+2] (8 days later)
My answer for both aspects is that this a world that until very recently was dominated by biological humans living in real time, and which is still sort of anchored to that. So yes, you could produce a lot more minds running much slower if that's what you wanted to do, but the point isn't to have the maximum number of minds in existence, it's to do something economically useful with them, which is tougher if you make them super-slow.