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Accelerando (2005)

antipope.org

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Re: Accelerando (2005)

#161

Post by XorNot »

mcmcmc wrote: post #155
XorNot wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its irrelevant if you can provide for yourself. The ecosystem cannot support 9 billion Hunter gatherers - period. Subsistence level agriculture is also wildly inefficient and so again: the ecosystem cannot support it. A hunter-gatherer dropped into a metropolis where all the logistics has suddenly failed would be as dead as everybody else.

> Its irrelevant if you can provide for yourself. The ecosystem cannot support 9 billion Hunter gatherers - period. I didn’t suggest that it could, but the number that it can support is certainly more than zero. If that’s the only choice in a hypothetical scenario where global infrastructure goes kablooey, then people who can figure out how to provide for themselves will outlive those who can’t. From there it’s natur…

Whether you survive is going to be almost entirely determined by factors not in your control and an obtainable skillset is statistically insignificant. The one critical skill is the one people discount almost immediately: social.

You're statistically likely to simply be stuck in collapsing logistics system alongside everyone else: whether you can kill and dress your own rabbit doesn't matter because their aren't any.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#162

Post by EdwardDiego »

mcmcmc wrote: post #145
SonnyTark wrote: post #19

Accelerando has prophecies that are coming true and it's scary. Spoiler warning in case you want to read it. The first part's main character basically has the future version of openclaw running in his glasses that let him dispatch agents to do any tasks/research he wants or to autonomously do things for him. -> we are already kinda here He's got such total dependency on his agents that when he loses his glasses he's…

This is nothing new though; industrialization and specialization have already caused basic survival skills to atrophy in most of the population. Take the case of a massive EMP taking out all computer systems. Gaps in supply chains and power failures would lead to millions (or billions) dying of starvation, dehydration, or exposure because they don’t know how to provide for themselves. People who’ve studied and practi…

> Gaps in supply chains and power failures would lead to millions (or billions) dying of starvation, dehydration, or exposure because they don’t know how to provide for themselves. People who’ve studied and practiced survival skills (or who retained that knowledge in physical media like a book) would survive.

Hahaha, bless. I'm one of those people, I hunt, so I spend a lot of time out in the wilderness.

And if civilisation suddenly collapsed? My hunting and survival skills aren't going to do shit when I'm surrounded by thousands of other people who are competing for the same limited pool of resources. I might be able to identify the signs that a deer has browsed here recently, but so can many other people, and when we all turn up in the same forest looking for food en masse, well there's only so many deer a given area can support.

> Drop someone from humanity’s hunter-gatherer days into the same situation and they’d have a better chance of surviving than most contemporary humans.

Unfortunately, as the contemporary humans will likely resort to banditry to supplement their survival chances, your idealized hunter-gatherers are doomed to being stood over at best, murderered at worst.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#163

Post by EdwardDiego »

XorNot wrote: post #161
mcmcmc wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its irrelevant if you can provide for yourself. The ecosystem cannot support 9 billion Hunter gatherers - period. I didn’t suggest that it could, but the number that it can support is certainly more than zero. If that’s the only choice in a hypothetical scenario where global infrastructure goes kablooey, then people who can figure out how to provide for themselves will outlive those who can’t. From there it’s natur…

Whether you survive is going to be almost entirely determined by factors not in your control and an obtainable skillset is statistically insignificant. The one critical skill is the one people discount almost immediately: social. You're statistically likely to simply be stuck in collapsing logistics system alongside everyone else: whether you can kill and dress your own rabbit doesn't matter because their aren't any.

And being able to find one rabbit and actually catch it will feed you for a few days at best, albeit with hunger pangs.

But then there's rabbit starvation... https://web.archive.org/web/20090405155151/https://www.westo...

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#164

Post by zxexz »

I feel the need to link the top level comment[0] the venerable cstross posted the time I submitted the same link a few years ago.

I also want to quote a comment of his on THIS posting of the link[1], just because he said he is chill being quoted on his referenced comment.

And finally, I want to state here that I fullheartedly agree with aforementioned comment and I too crave a banksian fully automated luxury gay space communism future.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33828666

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163649

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#166

Post by hexfish »

tintor wrote: post #75
SonnyTark wrote: post #19

Accelerando has prophecies that are coming true and it's scary. Spoiler warning in case you want to read it. The first part's main character basically has the future version of openclaw running in his glasses that let him dispatch agents to do any tasks/research he wants or to autonomously do things for him. -> we are already kinda here He's got such total dependency on his agents that when he loses his glasses he's…

“ verdicts are delivered by AI courts, all within milliseconds” In which way is this on-track to happen?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47836226

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#168

Post by dTal »

Looks like singularity panic is having a bit of a moment on Hacker News. In the past day:

Accelerando (2005) (antipope.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48159241

Too Much Is Happening Too Fast (theatlantic.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163631

We've made the world too complicated (user8.bearblog.dev) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48158065

I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis (twitter.com/mitchellh) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48153379

Leaving the Physical World (eff.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084012

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#169

Post by ian_j_butler »

FL33TW00D wrote: post #14

Anyone have recommendations on books that can rival the first part of Accelerando in number of prescient ideas about how the near future, pre singularity might look? My own list is: Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon Counting Heads by David Marusek Nexus by Ramez Naam Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge But I'm always on the look out for more! The more predictive the better!

Apparently Counting Heads is currently a freebie for audible premium. Rainbows.. overrated IMHO.

Nexus series has a great story with great pacing, classic cyberpunk ambiance with genuinely fresh takes, but be warned.. fairly bad writing. Astonishing that there is no movie yet because it really seems like one of those things very much written with that in mind. As Hollywood continues to discourage original work and scramble for adaptations with an existing audience.. even more astonishing if it doesn't land in the next few years. Someone will realize they can get the ready-player audience and the cyberpunk 2077 audience without paying big royalties

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