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Between the Metaverse, "mercenary spyware", AI war targeting, and death drones, I keep wondering who it is that read Neuromancer and thought; "What a rosy pictu

Between the Metaverse, "mercenary spyware", AI war targeting, and death drones, I keep wondering who it is that read Neuromancer and thought; "What a rosy picture! How can we realize this stunning vision of a future-to-be?"

jsheard 3y ago
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538 https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538
- rchaud 3y ago
  Same goes for certain types of lead characters in things like American Psycho, Fight Club, Mad Men and Wolf of Wall St. These are seen as aspirational instead of cautionary tales.
  - unholythree 3y ago
    I go to a restaurant where the owner has recently hung a sign reading “The World is Yours” as though Tony Montana from Scarface should be regarded a fount of wisdom.
    - philistine 3y ago
      If you want to deify Tony Montana, there is one quote that is the John 3:16 of his proselytizing, and the world is yours is not that quote. I guess you can't put it in a restaurant.
  - FabHK 3y ago
    And, famously, Michael Lewis's first book, "Liar's Poker": > Despite the book's quite unflattering depiction of Wall Street firms and many of the people who worked there, many younger readers were fascinated by the life depicted. Many read it as a "how-to manual" and asked the author for additional "secrets" that he might care to share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker#Reception
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    There was a recent article in NYT about Grand Theft Auto and the author mentions that their friends became a little more racist after playing it as kids. My takeaway was that these forms of media aren't for children because they probably won't understand that it's satire. Then I realized that many adults don't understand that it's satire either. Edit: article in question: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/arts/grand-theft-auto-islam.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/arts/grand-theft-auto-isl...
    - fulafel 3y ago
      The framing and cut scenes in GTA may be satire but the gameplay where you actually immerse yourself in the game in get into the character's shoes mostly aren't. Those parts are largely just shooting people. I guess you could argue that it's some other kind of satire than being anti violence.
- astrange 3y ago
  The tech company is right since this appears to be a reference to the Total Perspective Vortex from Hitchhiker's Guide, which notably didn't do anything bad when it was turned on.
  - kristianbrigman 3y ago
    Only for Zaphod and only because he was in a simulation where he was in fact the most important person :)
- tialaramex 3y ago
  To be fair, somebody will always decide what you wrote was a warning and they should fear it, even if you specifically intended a utopia, just as people insist on rooting for and even imitating the bad guys from stories because they misunderstood "cool" as "good". Example: Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. Some people think the Primer, the technological device at the heart of Diamond Age, is the problem, not the Neo-Victorian aristocrats like Elizabeth's parents with their pseudo-colonial control over part of China, not the huge corporations whose greed is tearing the world apart and their engineers like Fiona's father, nor the Cyberpunks left over from a previous era like Nell's father - no the problem is the machine. In the Tweet framing it's easy, it's named a Torment Nexus and the book is literally titled "Don't Create The Torment Nexus" but what about the Horseless Carriage? The Novel? The Television? Are we creating the Urban Sprawl, the Wasted Youth, are we helping to Manufacture Consent ? Or maybe these are Freedom and Art for the Masses ? Framing.
  - pksebben 3y ago
    Okay, yeah. But even from a pretty hardcore moral relativist POV... > "mercenary spyware", AI war targeting, and death drones Are not super easy to justify. Like, sure some people obviously think those ought to be a thing, but those people are dicks.
  - nojs 3y ago
    > San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending You forgot Hang the DJ :)
  - kibwen 3y ago
    > Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. IIRC, after the couple prances away hand-in-hand into the sunset, the camera pulls back through the fourth wall to reveal the darkened server room in which their minds are being emulated, blinkenlights glittering in the darkness among the monotone drone of case fans, zooming out to reveal an endless row of servers receding into the distant blackness in a scene reminiscent of The Matrix. If the showrunners intended it to be unambiguously happy, I feel like they would have omitted that part... Or maybe I'm hallucinating, because I found the implications utterly horrifying, much to my partner's consternation.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
reaperducer 3y ago
I keep wondering who it is that read Neuromancer and thought; "What a rosy picture! How can we realize this stunning vision of a future-to-be?" The same people who read 1984 and thought the same thing. Or the people who failed to read 1984, so they didn't get the warnings.
mrguyorama 3y ago
There will never be a shortage of people who read dystopia and think "That would be awful, I should oppress the entire world as it's rightful, righteous god king and make sure things go well (specifically how my extremely small perspective understands right and wrong)" We see on this very board a huge segment of people who believe "tech" for "tech's sake" is a good thing, or that any "tech" is inherently an advancement of society, and that advancement === good
throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
Don't worry, reality and time will find a way to make reality worse than anything a fiction writer could've conceived in the past. Even Brave New World seems quaint now.
godelski 3y ago
> "What a rosy picture! How can we realize this stunning vision of a future-to-be?" The people who said Don't worry about doing it right, just do it fast, we'll fix it later And it was never fixed. It seems we keep pushing to go faster and faster, and for cheaper. If you continually are cutting weight pretty soon you're gonna have to cut off your limbs. Any successful bureaucrat/manager who cut fat before you is not going to leave much fat left for you to cut. Besides, some fat is actually good.

jsheard 3y ago

Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538 https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538

rchaud 3y ago
Same goes for certain types of lead characters in things like American Psycho, Fight Club, Mad Men and Wolf of Wall St. These are seen as aspirational instead of cautionary tales.
- unholythree 3y ago
  I go to a restaurant where the owner has recently hung a sign reading “The World is Yours” as though Tony Montana from Scarface should be regarded a fount of wisdom.
  - philistine 3y ago
    If you want to deify Tony Montana, there is one quote that is the John 3:16 of his proselytizing, and the world is yours is not that quote. I guess you can't put it in a restaurant.
- FabHK 3y ago
  And, famously, Michael Lewis's first book, "Liar's Poker": > Despite the book's quite unflattering depiction of Wall Street firms and many of the people who worked there, many younger readers were fascinated by the life depicted. Many read it as a "how-to manual" and asked the author for additional "secrets" that he might care to share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker#Reception
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  There was a recent article in NYT about Grand Theft Auto and the author mentions that their friends became a little more racist after playing it as kids. My takeaway was that these forms of media aren't for children because they probably won't understand that it's satire. Then I realized that many adults don't understand that it's satire either. Edit: article in question: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/arts/grand-theft-auto-islam.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/arts/grand-theft-auto-isl...
  - fulafel 3y ago
    The framing and cut scenes in GTA may be satire but the gameplay where you actually immerse yourself in the game in get into the character's shoes mostly aren't. Those parts are largely just shooting people. I guess you could argue that it's some other kind of satire than being anti violence.
astrange 3y ago
The tech company is right since this appears to be a reference to the Total Perspective Vortex from Hitchhiker's Guide, which notably didn't do anything bad when it was turned on.
- kristianbrigman 3y ago
  Only for Zaphod and only because he was in a simulation where he was in fact the most important person :)
tialaramex 3y ago
To be fair, somebody will always decide what you wrote was a warning and they should fear it, even if you specifically intended a utopia, just as people insist on rooting for and even imitating the bad guys from stories because they misunderstood "cool" as "good". Example: Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. Some people think the Primer, the technological device at the heart of Diamond Age, is the problem, not the Neo-Victorian aristocrats like Elizabeth's parents with their pseudo-colonial control over part of China, not the huge corporations whose greed is tearing the world apart and their engineers like Fiona's father, nor the Cyberpunks left over from a previous era like Nell's father - no the problem is the machine. In the Tweet framing it's easy, it's named a Torment Nexus and the book is literally titled "Don't Create The Torment Nexus" but what about the Horseless Carriage? The Novel? The Television? Are we creating the Urban Sprawl, the Wasted Youth, are we helping to Manufacture Consent ? Or maybe these are Freedom and Art for the Masses ? Framing.
- pksebben 3y ago
  Okay, yeah. But even from a pretty hardcore moral relativist POV... > "mercenary spyware", AI war targeting, and death drones Are not super easy to justify. Like, sure some people obviously think those ought to be a thing, but those people are dicks.
- nojs 3y ago
  > San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending You forgot Hang the DJ :)
- kibwen 3y ago
  > Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. IIRC, after the couple prances away hand-in-hand into the sunset, the camera pulls back through the fourth wall to reveal the darkened server room in which their minds are being emulated, blinkenlights glittering in the darkness among the monotone drone of case fans, zooming out to reveal an endless row of servers receding into the distant blackness in a scene reminiscent of The Matrix. If the showrunners intended it to be unambiguously happy, I feel like they would have omitted that part... Or maybe I'm hallucinating, because I found the implications utterly horrifying, much to my partner's consternation.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

reaperducer 3y ago

I keep wondering who it is that read Neuromancer and thought; "What a rosy picture! How can we realize this stunning vision of a future-to-be?" The same people who read 1984 and thought the same thing. Or the people who failed to read 1984, so they didn't get the warnings.

mrguyorama 3y ago

There will never be a shortage of people who read dystopia and think "That would be awful, I should oppress the entire world as it's rightful, righteous god king and make sure things go well (specifically how my extremely small perspective understands right and wrong)" We see on this very board a huge segment of people who believe "tech" for "tech's sake" is a good thing, or that any "tech" is inherently an advancement of society, and that advancement === good

throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago

Don't worry, reality and time will find a way to make reality worse than anything a fiction writer could've conceived in the past. Even Brave New World seems quaint now.

godelski 3y ago

> "What a rosy picture! How can we realize this stunning vision of a future-to-be?" The people who said Don't worry about doing it right, just do it fast, we'll fix it later And it was never fixed. It seems we keep pushing to go faster and faster, and for cheaper. If you continually are cutting weight pretty soon you're gonna have to cut off your limbs. Any successful bureaucrat/manager who cut fat before you is not going to leave much fat left for you to cut. Besides, some fat is actually good.