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Let's put the future behind us

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Re: Let's put the future behind us

#11

Post by cstross »

digi_owl wrote: post #7
waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's just the stuff people end up linking, but Stross's blog always seems so negative. It's a bit of a drag.

Either it is the Scottish weather, or it is his way of dealing with a serious case of tech burnout, from being in the thick of the 90s Internet boom in UK.

Also: older and more cynical this decade.

(Although I have a soft spot for Elon Musk's projects: both Tesla and SpaceX seem poised to go the distance, and they're both potentially huge game-changers in their respective fields.)

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#12

Post by digi_owl »

cstross wrote: post #11
digi_owl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it is the Scottish weather, or it is his way of dealing with a serious case of tech burnout, from being in the thick of the 90s Internet boom in UK.

Also: older and more cynical this decade. (Although I have a soft spot for Elon Musk's projects: both Tesla and SpaceX seem poised to go the distance, and they're both potentially huge game-changers in their respective fields.)

Heh, the net sure is a small world.

(and yep, egg on my face for not looking at the link poster)

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#14

Post by mcguire »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's just the stuff people end up linking, but Stross's blog always seems so negative. It's a bit of a drag.

I'm a little unclear on the point of this article. Is it that the future is here, but it's way different from you thought it would be, or that universal surveillance is universal?

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#17

Post by raldi »

grey-area wrote: post #15
raldi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. How about, "A visit to Germany's indoor tropical resort"?

He's not really just talking about an indoor tropical resort.

Oh, then I must've given up before I found the part where he reveals his point.

What is it?

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#18

Post by joshmarlow »

DennisP wrote: post #4

I'm sure he's right, while there's only one O'Neill colony. But I can't help thinking that after a couple centuries of exponential growth, when there are millions of them, that it will be a boon for human freedom. I'm not convinced that such extensive surveillance will be necessary for safety purposes. Detectors for explosives, and security around critical points like airlocks, is likely to be sufficient. Ultimately,…

I would worry about relying only on specific countermeasures like explosive detection. You can only build detectors like that for attack's that you can imagine; it's always possible someone is a bit more clever and comes up with a unique/lateral attack.

With extensive surveillance and AI good enough to interpret body-language with a high-degree of accuracy, you could have a very general detector; as long as the person knows they are being malicious, I bet it'll generally show up in his/her body-language.

Which of course opens up the possibility of having patsy's who don't know they are carrying a bomb or what-not and so have normal body language, so specific and general detection mechanisms are probably going to be needed...

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#19

Post by javert »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's just the stuff people end up linking, but Stross's blog always seems so negative. It's a bit of a drag.

Speaking as an American, he seems to have that stereotypical European pessimism about human nature, which is a big turn off to me.

(I realize these stereotypes are just stereotypes... I mention them here because they seem to fit well.)

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#20

Post by icegreentea »

raldi wrote: post #17
grey-area wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not really just talking about an indoor tropical resort.

Oh, then I must've given up before I found the part where he reveals his point. What is it?

He's using it as a tool to think about the implications of space colonies - with the major point being that he believes that space colonies must implement some level of high fidelity individual tracking and monitoring for security purposes / that people would likely accept that loss of privacy for various reasons.
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