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Ant Geopolitics

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Re: Ant Geopolitics

#91

Post by laylower »

ryanblakeley wrote: post #10

Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.

Hi Ryan,

This is really cool. I read the trilogy, time, ruin, memory in 5-6 sessions and I loved it.

Questions I would ask: 1) Where does he draw his inspiration from? 2) Should we expect to continue seeing Adrian putting together such amazing books so prolifically? 3) Does he believe that the outcome of his trilogy would be the most probable? 4) Besides arthropods do any other species stand a chance against primates?

Re: Ant Geopolitics

#93

Post by ses1984 »

throw310822 wrote: post #85
octagons wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also experienced this using GAN. Be wary and use common sense. I never bothered reporting it but I’d be willing to bet we’re talking about the same person. They listed the same advertisement in basically every state with a different Google Voice number so as to appear local. I was under the impression that we would be meeting because they were local, which is how GAN is intended to operate.?Instead, they shipped…

So there is someone that is running a shady operation selling ants ? > They started a web store not longer afterwards. At this point I'm not sure if it's a store online or one that sells spider-related stuff.

I’m guessing it started as a hobby for this guy then became a shady business when he realized there are a bunch of easy marks out there in an underserved market.

Re: Ant Geopolitics

#94

Post by octagons »

throw310822 wrote: post #85
octagons wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also experienced this using GAN. Be wary and use common sense. I never bothered reporting it but I’d be willing to bet we’re talking about the same person. They listed the same advertisement in basically every state with a different Google Voice number so as to appear local. I was under the impression that we would be meeting because they were local, which is how GAN is intended to operate.?Instead, they shipped…

So there is someone that is running a shady operation selling ants ? > They started a web store not longer afterwards. At this point I'm not sure if it's a store online or one that sells spider-related stuff.

The shadiness largely comes from the fact that transporting insects can be a risk to the environment. Permits to ship live ant queens are not hard to obtain, but there are laws that prohibit certain species from being shipped to certain areas.

The permit also covers obligations for the recipient, such as ensuring that no pathogens are left on the packing materials and that you dispose of the insects properly, if necessary.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-III/...

Re: Ant Geopolitics

#95

Post by mcmoor »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #25
ryanblakeley wrote: post #10

Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.

Love this book! I wrote Adrian after reading it and asked for permission to build a game inspired by it and received his blessing ( https://i.imgur.com/JWwNMR4.png ) :) (slight spoilers, FYI) https://ant.care/ https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants It's my first game, so it's going pretty slowly, but the goal is to have the player fill the role of the Eliza/Kern hybrid. You send commands to your pet ant colony once-per-…

About that Simulation Dream article, one dangerous thing about relying on apophenia is when the player model requires something but the game model can't answer it. It sometimes lead to immersion breaking, like I experience myself in RimWorld. In fact, the dream of super sophisticated game model is likely so that it can answer anything player model come up with.

Re: Ant Geopolitics

#96

Post by bellorap »

fritzo wrote: post #65
ryanblakeley wrote: post #10

Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.

Question for Adrian: All your sentient beings are animal-like: they are discrete animals that move around, or at weirdest are a ruinous sludge that moves around and assumes the form of animals. But might we see mycelium networks as sentient? Zoubin Ghahramani argues that intelligence is about motion, that the sea squirt digests its own brain as soon as it settles down. But might there be intelligent communities of st…

Could you link to where Zoubin Ghahramani talks about that? Curious but can’t find it in my web search

Re: Ant Geopolitics

#97

Post by fritzo »

bellorap wrote: post #96
fritzo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question for Adrian: All your sentient beings are animal-like: they are discrete animals that move around, or at weirdest are a ruinous sludge that moves around and assumes the form of animals. But might we see mycelium networks as sentient? Zoubin Ghahramani argues that intelligence is about motion, that the sea squirt digests its own brain as soon as it settles down. But might there be intelligent communities of st…

Could you link to where Zoubin Ghahramani talks about that? Curious but can’t find it in my web search

Sorry, I don't see anything public. I remember a particular talk he gave in maybe 2018 or 2019 while he was at Uber. IIRC the talk started roughly:

Do any of you know what this animal is? This is a sea squirt. What's interesting about the sea squirt is that it has a brain --but for only part of its life. It starts out mobile, seeking a place to live. But once it finds a place, it fixes itself to a rock and digests its brain. What this shows us is the purpose of intelligence: it is motion. Intelligence is about moving things around.

Re: Ant Geopolitics

#98

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #25
ryanblakeley wrote: post #10

Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.

Love this book! I wrote Adrian after reading it and asked for permission to build a game inspired by it and received his blessing ( https://i.imgur.com/JWwNMR4.png ) :) (slight spoilers, FYI) https://ant.care/ https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants It's my first game, so it's going pretty slowly, but the goal is to have the player fill the role of the Eliza/Kern hybrid. You send commands to your pet ant colony once-per-…

Hey, that's cool. Here's my game- not inspired by Adrian's work (though I contacted him to ask him about a tt-rpg of his own called Bugworld and on which Shadows of the Apt was based). But it's about insects:

https://github.com/stassa/nests-and-insects

Haven't worked on that for a while though.

Re: Ant Geopolitics

#99

Post by [deleted] »

abrookewood wrote: post #86
ryanblakeley wrote: post #10

Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.

Can you please let everyone know where this interview will be available?

[deleted]
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