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They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

mit.edu

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Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#61

Post by nmca »

surprisetalk wrote: post #15

Andy Weir's The Egg is another excellent short story: [1] http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html If you're looking for more short stories, I highly recommend the following: • Ted Chiang's Exhalation • Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life and Others • Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie • Borges's Ficciones • Smullyan's What is the Name of This Book? • Smullyan's Lady or the Tiger? • Douglas Adams's God's Debris Remember t…

If you enjoy darker/harder sci-fi "Axiomatic" is a great collection by Greg Egan.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#63

Post by themanmaran »

fiforpg wrote: post #21

I like how the word "meat" is clearly an inaccurate translation of a notion in the language of the conversation, for lack of a better word in human languages. "Organic matter" would be more accurate, but less striking. Meaning, "meat" is a variation on the "unreliable narrator" theme: the "unreliable language". This is used a lot in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun , where medieval language describes artifacts of a s…

The Long Sun series (also Gene Wolfe) was another excellent use of this. Everything is narrated by a priest unknowingly living on a generational starship and you're left to interpret the world around them.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#64

Post by js2 »

surprisetalk wrote: post #15

Andy Weir's The Egg is another excellent short story: [1] http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html If you're looking for more short stories, I highly recommend the following: • Ted Chiang's Exhalation • Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life and Others • Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie • Borges's Ficciones • Smullyan's What is the Name of This Book? • Smullyan's Lady or the Tiger? • Douglas Adams's God's Debris Remember t…

They're Made Out of Meat (21 submissions) and The Egg (33 submissions) seem to be the most frequently submitted short stories to this site:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=galactanet.com

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#66

Post by hutzlibu »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #51
3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think an advanced species would be surprised that we're made of what we consume? Quite a funny take, because there's literally no other option. The reason a power plant, or factory, or any machine at all doesn't "eat" what it's made of is because human engineers are the digestion enzymes and protein factories. We digest raw materials (amino acids) into parts (proteins) based on plans and schematics (DNA), and the…

Not illogical at all. A person that abuses animals is a potential menace to society - lack of empathy means they might easily abuse humans too. We are punishing sociopathic tendencies here. Farming animals is not sociopathic, it's a business decision based on economic interest. This works because animals don't have human rights. (Obviously.)

"lack of empathy means they might easily abuse humans too"

So just in case, we should jail most of our animal farmers/slaughterhouse workers as well?

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#68

Post by 3cats-in-a-coat »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #51
3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think an advanced species would be surprised that we're made of what we consume? Quite a funny take, because there's literally no other option. The reason a power plant, or factory, or any machine at all doesn't "eat" what it's made of is because human engineers are the digestion enzymes and protein factories. We digest raw materials (amino acids) into parts (proteins) based on plans and schematics (DNA), and the…

Not illogical at all. A person that abuses animals is a potential menace to society - lack of empathy means they might easily abuse humans too. We are punishing sociopathic tendencies here. Farming animals is not sociopathic, it's a business decision based on economic interest. This works because animals don't have human rights. (Obviously.)

You need to let this one simmer down and see how it is self-contradictory.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#69

Post by soufron »

surprisetalk wrote: post #15

Andy Weir's The Egg is another excellent short story: [1] http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html If you're looking for more short stories, I highly recommend the following: • Ted Chiang's Exhalation • Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life and Others • Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie • Borges's Ficciones • Smullyan's What is the Name of This Book? • Smullyan's Lady or the Tiger? • Douglas Adams's God's Debris Remember t…

Ahah just read The Egg after reading your comment... great advice! Loved it! Thank you!

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#70

Post by DalasNoin »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #31

My favourite short story is Last Contact , by Steven Baxter[1]. It always scared the hell out of me, because it was so... mundane , to the very end. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20080725045740/http://www.solari...

I feel somewhat similar about the arrival of AGI, I definitely want to cherish my time now more. I think it is at least plausible that these are the last years of anything resembling any value. Even beyond my own existence. It is not exactly the same, with AGI there is more uncertainty about timelines and outcome, and there is no general expert opinion that one could defer to.
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