|
GTD Aquitaine posted:The dark forest idea has always rubbed me the wrong way because it starts with the whole "aliens will obliterate potentially-threatening technological civilizations" bit. An earlier post that cited Atomic Rockets touched on this, but consider - we're already close to being able to detect biosignatures on exoplanets while being far, far away from being able to build relativistic kill vehicles. If you've got a society that's so paranoid and terrified that they'll genocide other civilizations sight unseen, why would they even wait to introduce the possibility of a threat emerging? Far better to regularly bombard any planet that displays the capacity to support life, before it develops a technological civilization. One of the premises of Dark Forest theory is that the galaxy has finite resources to compete for, so taking it as face value it makes sense they wouldn't burn every world they come across because if it is uninhabited, they're just wasting precious matter and energy they could be using for themselves
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 13:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 12:57 |
|
|
Tezer posted:The first three are great. I didn't read the second set of three which were written decades later, I liked the way the third book ended. I really, really enjoyed Tehanu, when reading it a few years back (closing on 40), straight after re-reading the first three books the first time after school years. It is obviously different, about 18 years different than the earlier books, but the theme and mood just spoke to me in a way that it really wouldn't have to 90's me, I think.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 16:50
|
|
|
Lunsku posted:I really, really enjoyed Tehanu, when reading it a few years back (closing on 40), straight after re-reading the first three books the first time after school years. It is obviously different, about 18 years different than the earlier books, but the theme and mood just spoke to me in a way that it really wouldn't have to 90's me, I think. Tehanowns
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 16:59
|
|
|
World Fantasy Award shortlists, if someone is fishing for reading suggestions: https://www.wfc2022.org/world-fantasy-award Novel: Black Water Sister by Zen Cho (Ace Books/Macmillan) A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom/Orbit UK) The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros (Inkyard Press) The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri (Orbit US/Orbit UK) The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (Nightfire/Viper UK)
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 16:59
|
|
|
Lunsku posted:I really, really enjoyed Tehanu, when reading it a few years back (closing on 40), straight after re-reading the first three books the first time after school years. It is obviously different, about 18 years different than the earlier books, but the theme and mood just spoke to me in a way that it really wouldn't have to 90's me, I think. I don't think I liked Tehanu all that much when I read it aaaages ago, but I recently reread them all and now Tehanu is great. It's definitely more of an old person book than the first three.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 17:18
|
|
|
Lunsku posted:I really, really enjoyed Tehanu, when reading it a few years back (closing on 40), straight after re-reading the first three books the first time after school years. It is obviously different, about 18 years different than the earlier books, but the theme and mood just spoke to me in a way that it really wouldn't have to 90's me, I think. I'll have to give Tehanu a shot. I think what turned me away was finding out that the second 'trilogy' wasn't a 'trilogy' but like one book that seemed related (Tehanu) and then the second book was short stories? And I just moved on at that point. Not my most coherent decision making.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 17:32
|
|
|
No Dignity posted:One of the premises of Dark Forest theory is that the galaxy has finite resources to compete for, so taking it as face value it makes sense they wouldn't burn every world they come across because if it is uninhabited, they're just wasting precious matter and energy they could be using for themselves I don't really buy that - bombarding a world to destroy a potential enemy civilization doesn't mean you still can't get its resources. Unless the aggressors are specifically looking for organic resources or elements such as uranium that are concentrated by planetary water cycles, it'd be easier to get them from uninhabitable bodies with very low surface gravities. Beyond that, the sheer scale of the galaxy meaning that its resources are effectively infinite anyway. But then so much of the Dark Forest hypothesis is down to ideology anyway, rather than "would this actually make sense."
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 17:46
|
|
|
GTD Aquitaine posted:I don't really buy that - bombarding a world to destroy a potential enemy civilization doesn't mean you still can't get its resources. Unless the aggressors are specifically looking for organic resources or elements such as uranium that are concentrated by planetary water cycles, it'd be easier to get them from uninhabitable bodies with very low surface gravities. Beyond that, the sheer scale of the galaxy meaning that its resources are effectively infinite anyway. I'm so sick of defending you from shivan bombers
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 18:02
|
|
|
GTD Aquitaine posted:I don't really buy that - bombarding a world to destroy a potential enemy civilization doesn't mean you still can't get its resources. Unless the aggressors are specifically looking for organic resources or elements such as uranium that are concentrated by planetary water cycles, it'd be easier to get them from uninhabitable bodies with very low surface gravities. Beyond that, the sheer scale of the galaxy meaning that its resources are effectively infinite anyway. I'm reading these posts while watching an episode of Ancient Aliens. The contrast between the Dark Forest paranoid pessimism and AAs ridiculously humanocentric optimism is kind of fun.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 18:05
|
|
|
The main problem with dark forest, imo, is that it assumes that all hypothetical alien races process transaction and risk identically to human brains.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 19:17
|
|
|
Lunsku posted:World Fantasy Award shortlists, if someone is fishing for reading suggestions: I don't know anything about Catriona Ward, but on the basis of this and the reviews I've taken a punt on Sundial, her latest, which is £1.79 on UK Kindle today. I have no real opinion about the dark forest, but the fact that humans are earth's second attempt at a globe-dominating, tool-using species after the dinosaurs gives me some slim hope that the worst of the great filter may actually be behind us. I'd say this hope keeps me warm at night but actually that's the climate change.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 19:25
|
|
|
Tezer posted:I'll have to give Tehanu a shot. I think what turned me away was finding out that the second 'trilogy' wasn't a 'trilogy' but like one book that seemed related (Tehanu) and then the second book was short stories? And I just moved on at that point. Not my most coherent decision making. Tehanu is basically LeGuin's feminist response to her own work after she has time to consider some of the implications.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 19:56
|
|
|
Also I enjoyed Blackwater Sister more than i thought i would.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 19:58
|
|
|
Danhenge posted:Tehanu is basically LeGuin's feminist response to her own work after she has time to consider some of the implications. Maybe also some of the responses: https://ansible.uk/misc/tpspeech.html
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 21:23
|
|
|
i prefer the inverted dark forest idea behind 'first contact'. there is enough for everyone, and it's humanity's duty to kill everyone who says otherwise
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 21:29
|
|
|
zoux posted:So what do you guys think the answer to the Fermi paradox is I think it's "universe too big" especially after seeing the JWST deep field Life is fragile and nukes are easy to build and most planets that ever manage to do it take billions of years to evolve sapient life so they end up using planet-sickening fossil fuels instead of fission and fusion like they should. If that’s not the case, it’s that space is too vast, if that’s not the case, I choose to remain hopeful and believe we’re the first  Basically same as I believed when I learned about the Fermi paradox when I was 7 or 8.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 21:59
|
|
|
The Sweet Hereafter posted:I have no real opinion about the dark forest, but the fact that humans are earth's second attempt at a globe-dominating, tool-using species after the dinosaurs gives me some slim hope that the worst of the great filter may actually be behind us. I'd say this hope keeps me warm at night but actually that's the climate change.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 22:46
|
|
|
Alastair Reynolds’ new collection, Belladonna Nights, is really dang good. Three great stories in the Revelation Space universe, but they’re not even the highlight. If you liked the Netflix Love-Death-Robots stories based on his work, the one-shots here are similarly intriguing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 23:04
|
|
|
fritz posted:Maybe also some of the responses: https://ansible.uk/misc/tpspeech.html Thanks for sharing that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2022 23:30
|
|
|
Even human brains don't really process transaction or risk dark forest style. That only happens when you get think tank weirdos trying to game history like it's an engineering problem. Even at the height of the cold war it now emerges that the name of the game was careerist bungling, not some precisely calibrated bingo bongo alpha bravo the president is on board deterrence procedure.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 00:57
|
|
|
I recently put a bullet in Yukikaze and Good Luck, Yukikaze by Chohei Kambayshi, and they were a weird experience. The series was talked up to me as "a guy who really likes fighter jets wanted to do his own version of Solaris," which is a near-perfect pitch for me. Unfortunately they didn't stick the landing. Part of my issue is that the first book is clearly a set of short stories bundled up with some post-facto edits made to string things together. The localization was fine - nothing to write home about, nothing to complain about, but it also means there's not a lot of artistry in the English version. As such, you're given a big chunk of somewhat bland words that boil down to "what if there were computers?" and that just isn't that exciting in the 2020s. I was left with the strange feeling of wanting to like something more than I actually did. I also finally got around to reading Children of Ruin. 's alright. It's following in Children of Time's footsteps and it can't be as shiny and new as its predecessor by definition, but it was a perfectly fine read. I hate to admit to reading Warhammer fiction, but I also grabbed Tchaikovsky's Day of Ascension and enjoyed it more than Ruin. Like, it's 40K licensed fiction, but it actually has cogent if not particularly novel things to say about faith and liberation in the plastic army men book. General Battuta posted:I'm so sick of defending you from shivan bombers It's about time someone said it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 01:56
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/QuotesOfJGB/status/1550586488462708738
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 02:40
|
|
|
Fans? Pfft, who needs them?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 02:46
|
|
|
I have no idea who JG Ballard is.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 02:47
|
|
|
Strategic Tea posted:Even human brains don't really process transaction or risk dark forest style. That only happens when you get think tank weirdos trying to game history like it's an engineering problem. my favorite post-cold war detail is that something hilarious like 80% of espionage against the United States or NATO members was in fact one group of the CIA fighting another one because of inter-officr politics
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 03:27
|
|
|
that's great lmao, I really dig Ballard...I still need to read more of his work, but I really liked High-Rise and The Drowned World was fun. Him and Swanwick were some of my favorite voices to discover in genre fiction over the last decade or soJG posted:A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere. This was the sort of resident who was content to do nothing but sit in his over-priced apartment, watch television with the sound turned down, and wait for his neighbours to make a mistake.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 04:33
|
|
|
pseudorandom name posted:I have no idea who JG Ballard is. be curious for once. I don't like him or his work but he's undisputedly acclaimed and influential.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 05:49
|
|
|
Ballard is fantastic and has had multiple movies made of his books. Clammy premillennial paranoia and people interacting with machines and systems in deeply hosed up ways.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 07:00
|
|
|
Punkin Spunkin posted:that's great lmao, I really dig Ballard...I still need to read more of his work, but I really liked High-Rise and The Drowned World was fun. Him and Swanwick were some of my favorite voices to discover in genre fiction over the last decade or so i guess high rise apartments are the English version of a subdevelopment with an HOA.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 09:02
|
|
|
It's divisive but I really liked the High Rise movie from a few years back.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 09:34
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:It's divisive but I really liked the High Rise movie from a few years back. Dredd?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 15:11
|
|
|
Attack the Block?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 15:21
|
|
|
...High-Rise
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 15:22
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:...High-Rise Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close!?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 15:29
|
|
|
Snowpiercer?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 15:32
|
|
|
Starship Troopers?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 15:32
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:...High-Rise How High?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 16:27
|
|
|
I didn't get past 3BP so I don't know about the rest of the series, but my recollection is that I found 3BP irritating cause I thought the science was lovely. A chaotic system doesn't mean unknowable chaos, just that you have to keep updating your predictions with new observations. Also the characters were mostly one dimensional.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 16:47
|
|
|
RDM posted:I didn't get past 3BP so I don't know about the rest of the series, but my recollection is that I found 3BP irritating cause I thought the science was lovely. A chaotic system doesn't mean unknowable chaos, just that you have to keep updating your predictions with new observations. The characters get even flatter in the last book!
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 16:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 12:57 |
|
|
General Battuta posted:The characters get even flatter in the last book! Lmao
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2022 17:02
|
|