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Destination: Jupiter

clarkesworldmagazine.com

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Re: Destination: Jupiter

#31

Post by kataklasm »

cmrx64 wrote: post #5
ednite wrote: post #2

It is always fascinating to see how much influence authors and scientists have had on each other throughout history. You sometimes see clear examples of how fiction fuels technology, and sometimes technology inspires fiction. As a writer who hasn’t been published yet, I find that most of my stories start by imagining where today’s science might take us next, though every now and then, I catch a glimpse of something t…

as a high schooler I took a summer class in “reading & writing scifi” offered by MIT Junction. it was very influential on my intellectual development and after that I focused myself on learning software and electronics, the only crafts I saw that could give me the power to pull parts of the visions into the present. a few weeks ago I started on a focused read of historical scifi, in chronological order, that had some…

In a similar vein, I really liked "Robot" by Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg, first published in 1973. It doesn't really mention AI itself, but it is about the relationship between humans and artificial life/intelligence. The central theme is the question of knowing if you're "real" in an artificial world. Not the easiest read and can be quite dark at times, but one of my favorite works of classical science fiction. Very underrated!

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#32

Post by jajko »

freedomben wrote: post #11
zabzonk wrote: post #6

Kind of hard for SF stories featuring organic life (i.e. humans) to be based around Jupiter because of the planet's incredibly strong magnetic field and hence killing radiation belts - like the Van Allen belts around Earth, but much worse. Probes to the Jovian system have to be heavily hardened.

If anybody is into sci-fi, I highly recommend The Three Body Problem series. I'm being very elusive here to avoid spoilers, but let's just say that there are some very fascinating challenging with establishing technology (and especially human life) around Jupiter, what with it's gravity, the radiation, it's moons, distance from the sun, etc. As a space nerd, those books were highly enjoyable

The tech/fantasy parts are great and were novel back then. But the characters were shallow, story so-so and ended in big meh, and overal it feels like chinese propaganda re freedom and future.

Any non-chinese character is evil for example, only chinese will inherit the right for their future. Western culture moved from such properly bad cliches long time ago for the better.

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#33

Post by protocolture »

BirAdam wrote: post #30
protocolture wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is the future mostly written by visionaries in fiction, or by the engineers and scientists bringing it to life? I find Charles Stross' blog to be quite informative. He has a tendency to predict a thing, write a book demonstrating how it will be good, and then absolutely hate the real world implications of the technology. Famously he picked up Nick Szabo's old whitepaper on smart contracts, and envisaged a world wher…

In general, people being people, it is always safe to assume that some will use a thing for its best purpose and others for its worst possible purpose.

Pretty much.

I also get the impression that as people age they place an increasing value on safety and comfort. Change is the antithesis to that.

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#34

Post by SoulMan »

bouncycastle wrote: post #23

Jupiter and Saturn moons always make inspiring hostnames. Right now, I have Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. Ganymede has the most powerful setup. Yesterday, I decommissioned Io.

Reminds me we named our sprints on these moon names

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#35

Post by GolfPopper »

protocolture wrote: post #24
ednite wrote: post #2

It is always fascinating to see how much influence authors and scientists have had on each other throughout history. You sometimes see clear examples of how fiction fuels technology, and sometimes technology inspires fiction. As a writer who hasn’t been published yet, I find that most of my stories start by imagining where today’s science might take us next, though every now and then, I catch a glimpse of something t…

>Is the future mostly written by visionaries in fiction, or by the engineers and scientists bringing it to life? I find Charles Stross' blog to be quite informative. He has a tendency to predict a thing, write a book demonstrating how it will be good, and then absolutely hate the real world implications of the technology. Famously he picked up Nick Szabo's old whitepaper on smart contracts, and envisaged a world wher…

>And has written a lot about how corporations are in fact evil AI running on the operating system of the government.

I would say his view of them is more Lovecraftian than "evil", but here's the speech (as a blog entry): https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-yo...

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#36

Post by UncleSlacky »

bouncycastle wrote: post #23

Jupiter and Saturn moons always make inspiring hostnames. Right now, I have Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. Ganymede has the most powerful setup. Yesterday, I decommissioned Io.

The VAX cluster at my university used Saturn (the most powerful member of the cluster) and its moons as hostnames.

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#37

Post by Snoddas »

stevenbedrick wrote: post #15
zabzonk wrote: post #6

Kind of hard for SF stories featuring organic life (i.e. humans) to be based around Jupiter because of the planet's incredibly strong magnetic field and hence killing radiation belts - like the Van Allen belts around Earth, but much worse. Probes to the Jovian system have to be heavily hardened.

In case anybody’s interested, Malka Older has a really enjoyable series (two books so far) of short novels set on habitats in Jupiter’s atmosphere (so not breathable atmosphere, but also not vacuum). They’re solid mystery stories with fun characters and an intriguing setting. The first is called “The Mimicking of Known Successes” and the second is “The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles”.

You may also enjoy Farewell Horizontal K. W. Jeter, takes place on a giant floating cylinder

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#38

Post by dcminter »

jajko wrote: post #32
freedomben wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anybody is into sci-fi, I highly recommend The Three Body Problem series. I'm being very elusive here to avoid spoilers, but let's just say that there are some very fascinating challenging with establishing technology (and especially human life) around Jupiter, what with it's gravity, the radiation, it's moons, distance from the sun, etc. As a space nerd, those books were highly enjoyable

The tech/fantasy parts are great and were novel back then. But the characters were shallow, story so-so and ended in big meh, and overal it feels like chinese propaganda re freedom and future. Any non-chinese character is evil for example, only chinese will inherit the right for their future. Western culture moved from such properly bad cliches long time ago for the better.

The opening scene of the first novel during the cultural revolution I recall as being absolutely fantastic. The rest of that novel was a big rather dull Asimovian deus ex, and then the rest of the series was more of that.

Big disappointment, very much not what I think of as hard sci-fi which is what it often gets billed as, and I absolutely do not get the love for it here.

Don't get me wrong, there's some total dross out there that I adore, but this ain't it for me.

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#39

Post by bencyoung »

jajko wrote: post #32
freedomben wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anybody is into sci-fi, I highly recommend The Three Body Problem series. I'm being very elusive here to avoid spoilers, but let's just say that there are some very fascinating challenging with establishing technology (and especially human life) around Jupiter, what with it's gravity, the radiation, it's moons, distance from the sun, etc. As a space nerd, those books were highly enjoyable

The tech/fantasy parts are great and were novel back then. But the characters were shallow, story so-so and ended in big meh, and overal it feels like chinese propaganda re freedom and future. Any non-chinese character is evil for example, only chinese will inherit the right for their future. Western culture moved from such properly bad cliches long time ago for the better.

I think it's more that western cultural cliches become invisible to western audiences rather than moving on. E.g. the "superhero" is definitely a western cliche. "A lone operative defies the rules to do the right thing because might is right if you're right. Individual exceptionalism triumphing etc". Somewhat shallowly examined in some films but still turns up all over the place.

Re: Destination: Jupiter

#40

Post by eikenberry »

BirAdam wrote: post #30
protocolture wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is the future mostly written by visionaries in fiction, or by the engineers and scientists bringing it to life? I find Charles Stross' blog to be quite informative. He has a tendency to predict a thing, write a book demonstrating how it will be good, and then absolutely hate the real world implications of the technology. Famously he picked up Nick Szabo's old whitepaper on smart contracts, and envisaged a world wher…

In general, people being people, it is always safe to assume that some will use a thing for its best purpose and others for its worst possible purpose.

Also good to remember that groups of people are not people, they think and act differently than any of the individuals that make them up.
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