The stalemate: we are in need of a revolution, yet
revolution is horror.
The progressive bound in paradox. Educated
in economics and politics, aware of the fundamental flaws of current economic
and political structures and the need for revolutionary change. Educated in history
and politics, aware of the inescapable progression of revolution from
ideological overthrow to death camp. Option: alternative modes of social being exist beyond our limited politics and economics. Technology is the birthmother of some, others organic. Some borrowed. Some created.
· Relativistic: Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space, proposes interstellar
humanity, segregated into the planet bound and those who live on “lighthuggers”,
ships that travel at a fraction below C. No FTL. Humanity temporally segregated,
strung out between the stars, dependent on the merchantment of the void.
· Extrapolated Relativistic: Again Reynolds, House of Suns, humanity vastly more
segregated, by space and by evolutionary multi-bifurcation. The star dwellers
now spend thousands of years in their ships, at C, distended through time.
Ageless as the human ages pass around them, adrift as around them galactic civilisations
furiously boil away from birth to culture death. Alone, amongst the songs of spaceborne
humanity.
· Quantum simulated: Addressing the question of
social cohesion, direction, use of resources. How to decide as a society?
Quantum computers allow multiple simulations of intricate complexity to be run,
considering all potential futures, modelled and examined. The simulations are
of sufficient systematic and mathematical complexity that they are considered alive.
Their creators observe, using the modelled outcomes to inform their decisions,
acting as custodians of this quantum simulated life. Symbiosis. But there need
be no end to a sufficiently complex simulation, nested realities being fractal
in nature.
· Anarchistic: Ian M. Banks, the Culture, post
scarcity anarchistic. Economic production of the social corpus is focused, lased, directed and overseen. Humans being the purpose of this humanoid pan galactica,
but are also the vassals of transcendent AI Minds. A materialistic heaven, the
end of war and suffering. But the vestigial carbonaceous, watched over, managed,
manipulated. The playthings of the silaceous. The creators who created their
own custodian.
· Embedded: The cyborg reality, a mycelia of quantum
computing material exists through all humanity, symbiotic and inextricable. Sufficient
systemic complexity, a species mind emerges. The I in I, within and without us
= there is no need for AI as we birth our own species being. God is in the
system. We school, a swarm of mind, a torrent of life.
· Observed: Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter, The light of other days. A new technology = wormhole cameras, allows
all humanity to be observed, by anyone, at any time. The end of privacy and
revolutionary change. The end of shame = fucking in the streets, why bother closing
the blinds? An extrapolation = resistance arises = those who use the wormhole
tech to connect mind directly to mind. Again, emergence, the hive, species mind.
· Fermi: We are alone. The first. The terror and
freedom. The colours out of space. Again, alone among the stars. Or just unaware,
mewling and blind, surrounded by grinning jackals.
More…
No comments:
Post a Comment