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Afraid so. That reminds me: IIRC in the Dune universe they eventually abandon all technology. I wonder if we're on that track for real.
by hn3333 6y ago
Afraid so. That reminds me: IIRC in the Dune universe they eventually abandon all technology. I wonder if we're on that track for real.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoNot quite. It's possible to live in the modern world using only Free and Open Source software. Stallman does this, but I think he's pretty much alone.
- a3n 6y agoI've read that he borrows people's phones.
- boogies 6y agoWikipedia says there are ~350,665 Old Order Amish (apparently in the New World? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#cite_note-Elizabethtown_College,_the_Young_Center_for_Anabaptist_and_Pietist_Studies-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#cite_note-Elizabethtown_...).
- est31 6y agoThis is not an exaggeration. Nowadays basically anything you buy that uses electricity also has chips included for various purposes. Those chips of course run proprietary software.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoSure, but I'd meant live in the modern world in the sense of living in tech-enabled society, rather than just living in the current day.
- lstodd 6y agoYeh, it was sold as a jihad. But I think Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons would fit better.
- bsanr2 6y agoIIRC that took a Matrix-style war that humanity just barely won, so I don't think there's much hope among writers that we get to a post-tech universe without breaching the brane of cataclysm, seeing machine-borne oblivion on the other side, and pulling our heads back just in time (or perhaps an instant later...).
- floren 6y ago> IIRC that took a Matrix-style war that humanity just barely won Only in the terrible prequels written by Frank Herbert's idiot son, who decided that a rejection of machines replacing humans = literal Terminators. One of the more interesting things about the Butlerian Jihad is that in the end, without thinking machines, they instead turned humans into machines.
- lstodd 6y ago> One of the more interesting things ... Yes, and this is often overlooked. The question if we should turn machines into humans or vice versa, and that there is no third option.
- bsanr2 6y agoThe third option is coexistence, though this too is something writers seem to be bearish on (Egan's Diaspora gives it a bit of consideration before simply killing off most organic life with a gamma ray burst, which I found somewhat cynical and or even spiteful, given the timing).