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Platystemon)
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synthetik posted:There’s a book “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” that’s about a guy freezing his wife with a terminal illness, and then himself, but only after learning enough about current events and cultures that would make him useful to be woken up. From what I recall, it did an excellent job talking not only about the mechanics of cryogenics but the ethics as well. Some of Niven's sci-fi books dive into this subject a lot, too - especially so the ethics of it all. A big part of the underlying premise there being that Earth is already very overpopulated, so things like: How useful would a person decades or more out of date - with no resources - be to an overpopulated world? And with the general consensus being that frozen people are mostly 'obsolete' as contributing members of society, whether or not it is ethical to treat frozen people as legally dead - for the purposes of organ harvesting, or inheritance by still-living relatives?
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Jan 23, 2021 18:38
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Syd Midnight posted:It sounds interesting but in practice it'd be less like the friendly ghost of grandma saying comforting things from a happy afterlife, and more like the macabre horror of a resurrected simulacrum facing its own existential oblivion. Imagining a megacorp holding my cyber loved one hostage and threatening to deactivate them if I don't pay the monthly subscription fee. Biplane posted:I'm reminded of the babylon 5 episode where some bad guys make a Garibaldi hologram? And it sabotages their efforts and destroys them and itself. Which would be the best outcome. This was a p good episode.
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Jan 23, 2021 18:42
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If you internalize the concept of a soul, these AIs are just demonic influences trying to wrap themselves in your dead loved ones' mortal remains
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Jan 23, 2021 18:47
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Colonel Cancer posted:If you internalize the concept of a soul, these AIs are just demonic influences trying to wrap themselves in your dead loved ones' mortal remains Evil, not demonic. Actual demons are loving saints compared to Capital/liberals.
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Jan 23, 2021 19:09
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Volmarias posted:If you're not doing this already, why are you even here
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Jan 23, 2021 19:23
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DarkDobe posted:Some of Niven's sci-fi books dive into this subject a lot, too - especially so the ethics of it all. A big part of the underlying premise there being that Earth is already very overpopulated, so things like: How useful would a person decades or more out of date - with no resources - be to an overpopulated world? And with the general consensus being that frozen people are mostly 'obsolete' as contributing members of society, whether or not it is ethical to treat frozen people as legally dead - for the purposes of organ harvesting, or inheritance by still-living relatives? So the basic issue here is that predicting what a future society thinks is "useful" is a hugely moving target. Niven for his part is Reaganite and so his concerns about overpopulation and 'useful persons' and such shines through here. However the future could be very radically different than we expect - population may decline radically just for one, or the value system will simply be quite alien. NK Jemisin wrote about a society that was radically anti-death - people are kept alive at any cost, even very much against their will. It's even possible to imagine a non-capitalist future, where people have value for their own sake. Crazy I know. If the future is like the present though, a person who is frozen for more than a century or so becomes incredibly valuable for research. Like, a while back some absolute moron with a PhD proposed that if a student from the University of York in 800 time traveled forward to today that student would be an absolute genius. A lot of people dunked on him for saying that this hypothetical Yorkman would be a genius at math and astronomy, but they would be an unbelievably powerful asset to medievalists. This person would be a titan on issues like "what did this poem mean in context" and "who were the power players in local politics" and "what were the local festivities." There's a lot more basic stuff in the record about 2021 than about 800 so that's a problem for Iceman 2021, but we didn't necessarily record the stuff historians will want answered and there's no guarantee that any particular amount of it will survive. Plus maybe Iceman 2021 will be useful for medical experiments, love to gamble on "being woken up to be a guinea pig."
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Jan 23, 2021 19:49
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I liked the take in Transmetropolitan. People get revived then dumped on a street corner with a bit of cash. It's an alien environment, no descendants are going to drop what they're doing for great great great great grand-relative, so they wind up as an underclass. A new strain of crazy street people. What I'm actually expecting to happen is the same thing that happened in the 1800s to all the ancient Egyptians seeking immortality. Mummies were exported to England by the shipload, tons and tons of them, and the bodies used for fertilizer, ground up for pigment, art projects etc. The kind of people who think they're going to achieve immortality are probably not the kind of people who could cope with a world in which they are the lowest of the low and nobody gives the slightest poo poo about them.  "What Transmetropolitan got right and wrong" would be a thread unto itself.
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Jan 23, 2021 20:25
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Play your cards right and you might end up running the place.
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Jan 23, 2021 20:27
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Syd Midnight posted:"What Transmetropolitan got right and wrong" would be a thread unto itself.  the funny thing about cryogenics is that all the bodies just turn into mush and it’ll never pan out, it’s a sham, always has been, and should probably be illegal
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Jan 23, 2021 20:28
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Syd Midnight posted:I liked the take in Transmetropolitan. People get revived then dumped on a street corner with a bit of cash. It's an alien environment, no descendants are going to drop what they're doing for great great great great grand-relative, so they wind up as an underclass. A new strain of crazy street people. And wealthy people planning to take back over their family/business are pretty much told to gently caress off by the people running their stuff now.
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Jan 23, 2021 20:35
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goatsestretchgoals posted:Play your cards right and you might end up running the place. Knowing my luck I'd end up being super awesome at some tricky knitting pattern.
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Jan 23, 2021 20:46
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Tulip posted:So the basic issue here is that predicting what a future society thinks is "useful" is a hugely moving target. Niven for his part is Reaganite and so his concerns about overpopulation and 'useful persons' and such shines through here. However the future could be very radically different than we expect - population may decline radically just for one, or the value system will simply be quite alien. NK Jemisin wrote about a society that was radically anti-death - people are kept alive at any cost, even very much against their will. It's even possible to imagine a non-capitalist future, where people have value for their own sake. Crazy I know. Oh undoubtedly Niven has ~issues~ that shine through in his work, but the dystopian sci-fi made for some good reading (and still does, in a lot of ways) - even if it hinges on running with some incredibly fascist society - which, in a lot of his novels/stories was entirely the main point of contention. I've only read Stone Sky by Jemisin but it sounds like I need to dig into more of her work. Peter Watts takes it in another direction, though it's never really a primary focus of the novels and stories he's written - but the idea of people uploading their consciousness to VR, while their bodies are frozen - and then systematically disassembled, as resources and any real need for the remaining flesh is expended. There's some interesting plot points regarding normal-human resentment towards the people that have chosen to upload themselves and 'escape' the hell-world that everyone else has to suffer through - but then the majority of his work is extremely dystopian to begin with. While I quite like the idea of frozen people being useful from an anthropological standpoint, one has to wonder if the society 'resurrecting' them has use for such things, or if they're busy murdering one another and just scraping by - but it sounds like it would lend itself well to some good fiction. Like you mentioned, I feel like the value of such 'stuff knowledge' will degrade, though, considering how ubiquitous recording and storage is becoming, it seems less and less likely anyone in particular would posses any information that couldn't just be dredged out of the landfills full of hard drives, if that makes any sense? Then again, a nice nuclear war or two, or something to wipe out digital infrastructure, and there'd be some merit to bringing back people with 'ancient' knowledge - which could itself be a fun plot, using these people as a literal resource. That or they are just being resurrected to be used for viable genetic material, or uncorrupted bodies for brain-transplants. DarkDobe has issued a correction as of 20:55 on Jan 23, 2021 |
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Jan 23, 2021 20:52
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Jan 23, 2021 21:07
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Yes, I'm the market guru who sells my incredible techniques for getting incredibly rich for only $49.95, instead of directly using them to get incredibly rich myself.
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Jan 23, 2021 21:37
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DarkDobe posted:Peter Watts takes it in another direction, though it's never really a primary focus of the novels and stories he's written - but the idea of people uploading their consciousness to VR, while their bodies are frozen - and then systematically disassembled, as resources and any real need for the remaining flesh is expended. There's some interesting plot points regarding normal-human resentment towards the people that have chosen to upload themselves and 'escape' the hell-world that everyone else has to suffer through - but then the majority of his work is extremely dystopian to begin with. If you read the climate thread cover to cover you'll realize that Watts, who generally posits future societies left drained by constant massive response to massive catastrophe, is utopian. Anything where society isn't just sleepwalking to death is rosy in the extreme.
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Jan 23, 2021 21:46
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DarkDobe posted:While I quite like the idea of frozen people being useful from an anthropological standpoint, one has to wonder if the society 'resurrecting' them has use for such things, or if they're busy murdering one another and just scraping by - but it sounds like it would lend itself well to some good fiction. Like you mentioned, I feel like the value of such 'stuff knowledge' will degrade, though, considering how ubiquitous recording and storage is becoming, it seems less and less likely anyone in particular would posses any information that couldn't just be dredged out of the landfills full of hard drives, if that makes any sense? Then again, a nice nuclear war or two, or something to wipe out digital infrastructure, and there'd be some merit to bringing back people with 'ancient' knowledge - which could itself be a fun plot, using these people as a literal resource. That or they are just being resurrected to be used for viable genetic material, or uncorrupted bodies for brain-transplants. Yeah the question around data preservation is really interesting, since most contemporary data is the worst of both worlds: if you write awful fanfic at 15 then a thousand perverts have backups that will haunt you forever, but genuinely useful stuff is shockingly ephemeral. We recently had a big thing with Flash, where a ton of stuff that is likely going to be of interest to future historians basically just broke because one company held all the keys and said "gently caress you." Fortunately we have a bunch of nerd willing to put in the effort to do preservation, but more obscure filetypes that go obsolete are a bigger challenge. My grandfather had a bunch of stuff that he only recorded in some miserable 90s filetype that we had to pay to get converted into something useable. Volmarias posted:Yes, I'm the market guru who sells my incredible techniques for getting incredibly rich for only $49.95, instead of directly using them to get incredibly rich myself. it's an old grift but it checks out
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Jan 23, 2021 21:49
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https://twitter.com/aldatweets/status/1352744018275401737
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Jan 23, 2021 22:14
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SchnorkIes posted:If you read the climate thread cover to cover you'll realize that Watts, who generally posits future societies left drained by constant massive response to massive catastrophe, is utopian. Anything where society isn't just sleepwalking to death is rosy in the extreme. I mean you're right - at a glance the worlds he depicts are awful hellscapes, but in many ways an improvement over collectively lemming-ing off an obvious cliff.
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Jan 23, 2021 22:49
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The market urbanist idea that a home costs 500k minimum per unit does do much loving damage
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Jan 23, 2021 22:49
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DarkDobe posted:I mean you're right - at a glance the worlds he depicts are awful hellscapes, but in many ways an improvement over collectively lemming-ing off an obvious cliff. Meanwhile Banks is dystopian bc the Culture novels are a world where humans are pets, and the protagonists are like the Paw Patrol
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Jan 23, 2021 22:52
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SchnorkIes posted:Meanwhile Banks is dystopian bc the Culture novels are a world where humans are pets, and the protagonists are like the Paw Patrol being a cat would be pretty awesome though
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Jan 23, 2021 22:57
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SchnorkIes posted:Meanwhile Banks is dystopian bc the Culture novels are a world where humans are pets, and the protagonists are like the Paw Patrol I'll get around to readin' that sometime. I keep telling myself. Kinda haven't been reading much this last year, the year that would have been perfect for reading.
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Jan 23, 2021 23:03
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it's gonna be really funny when one of these cryonics companies goes out of business the famous bodies sold off to adorn the private collections of billionaires, the rest quietly dumped in the nearest public waterway
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Jan 23, 2021 23:05
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Does this solar-powered doghouse have indoor plumbing that will keep you from being arrested for answering nature's call by sullying a dumpster or whatever when there isn't a bathroom nearby or all the places with one are closed?
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Jan 23, 2021 23:34
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synthetik posted:There’s a book “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” that’s about a guy freezing his wife with a terminal illness, and then himself, but only after learning enough about current events and cultures that would make him useful to be woken up. From what I recall, it did an excellent job talking not only about the mechanics of cryogenics but the ethics as well. sounds familiar 
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Jan 23, 2021 23:55
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galenanorth posted:Does this solar-powered doghouse have indoor plumbing that will keep you from being arrested for answering nature's call by sullying a dumpster or whatever when there isn't a bathroom nearby or all the places with one are closed? nope they're just insulated plywood boxes. they're not even heated the solar panels are used to power sensors that detect when it's occupied, a radio that's used to summon social workers in the morning to come investigate the occupant, and a time lock that renders them off-limits during the day after the social worker has lured the occupant out
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Jan 24, 2021 00:04
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Main Paineframe posted:nope Ahaha, that's so bad.
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Jan 24, 2021 00:10
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Main Paineframe posted:nope lmao
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Jan 24, 2021 00:12
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SchnorkIes posted:Meanwhile Banks is dystopian bc the Culture novels are a world where humans are pets, and the protagonists are like the Paw Patrol ive never liked this interpretation. the minds are also pets. nobody does any truly important work or wields any real power
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Jan 24, 2021 00:15
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Using a fake deed as a lure
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Jan 24, 2021 00:44
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Farm Frenzy posted:ive never liked this interpretation. the minds are also pets. nobody does any truly important work or wields any real power I'm pretty sure a gigantic starship with space bending engines and magic rays has at least some power
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Jan 24, 2021 01:06
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Main Paineframe posted:nope Mousetraps for the homeless, incredible.
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Jan 24, 2021 01:31
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Volmarias posted:Mousetraps for the homeless, incredible. Housetraps.
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Jan 24, 2021 01:48
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grate deceiver posted:I'm pretty sure a gigantic starship with space bending engines and magic rays has at least some power
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Jan 24, 2021 01:54
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Farm Frenzy posted:every single culture novel is about how they use that power to make two people who broke up 300 years ago get back together or something. if a mind tried to gently caress with its passengers too much theyd just take the orgy party somewhere else and all the other minds would make fun of them on the forums which is a fate worse than death  
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Jan 24, 2021 01:59
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oh the war that happened because all the humans voted for it? that caused a society wide schism?
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Jan 24, 2021 02:01
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Megalomaniacs are not unknown in the Culture, but they tend to be diverted successfully into highly complicated games; there are entire Orbitals where some of these philosophically crude Obsessive games are played, though most are in Virtual Reality. Something of a status-symbol for the determined megalomaniac is having one's own starship; this is considered wasteful by most people, and is also futile, if the purpose of having it is to escape the Culture completely and - say - set up oneself up as God or Emperor on some backward planet; the person might be free to pilot their (obviously non-AI controlled) ship, and even approach a planet, but the Contact section is equally free to follow that person wherever they go and do whatever it thinks appropriate to stop him or her from doing anything injurious or unpleasant to whatever civilisations they come into - or attempt to come into - contact with. This tends to be frustrating, and Virtual Reality games - up to and including utter-involvement level, in which the player has to make a real and sustained effort to return to the real world, and can even forget that it exists entirely - are far more satisfying. Some people, however, refuse this escape-route too, and leave the Culture altogether for a civilisation that suits them better and where they can operate in a system which gives them the kind of rewards they seek. To renounce the Culture so is to lose access to its technology though, and, again, Contact supervises the entry of such people into their chosen civilisation at a level which guarantees they aren't starting with too great an advantage compared to the original inhabitants (and retains the option of interfering, if it sees fit). A few such apparently anti-social people are even used by Contact itself, especially by the Special Circumstances section. The way the Culture creates AIs means that a small number of them suffer from similar personality problems; such machines are given the choice of cooperative re-design, a more limited role in the Culture than they might have had otherwise, or a similarly constrained exile. Politics in the Culture consists of referenda on issues whenever they are raised; generally, anyone may propose a ballot on any issue at any time; all citizens have one vote. Where issues concern some sub-division or part of a total habitat, all those - human and machine - who may reasonably claim to be affected by the outcome of a poll may cast a vote. Opinions are expressed and positions on issues outlined mostly via the information network (freely available, naturally), and it is here that an individual may exercise the most personal influence, given that the decisions reached as a result of those votes are usually implemented and monitored through a Hub or other supervisory machine, with humans acting (usually on a rota basis) more as liaison officers than in any sort of decision-making executive capacity; one of the few rules the Culture adheres to with any exactitude at all is that a person's access to power should be in inverse proportion to their desire for it. The sad fact for the aspiring politico in the Culture is that the levers of power are extremely widely distributed, and very short (see entry on megalomaniacs, above). The intellectual-structural cohesion of a starship of course limits the sort of viable votes possible on such vessels, though as a rule even the most arrogant craft at least pretend to listen when their guests suggest - say - making a detour to watch a supernova, or increasing the area of parkland on-board. http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
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Jan 24, 2021 02:01
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https://twitter.com/CNETNews/status/1352603614477484032
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Jan 24, 2021 02:05
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Main Paineframe posted:nope That's literally a description of the traps used to relocate bears that wander into the suburbs. THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT ZOOLOGISTS USE TO TRAP BEARS THAT WANDER INTO SUBURBS gently caress
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Jan 24, 2021 02:08
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Main Paineframe posted:nope New Rose Hotel also gets tossed in the "actually utopian" pile
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Jan 24, 2021 02:12
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