5 ms·

Very cool story, quite impactful on my thinking, although I will caution that the dystopia is better conceived than the utopia, mainly because the later require

Very cool story, quite impactful on my thinking, although I will caution that the dystopia is better conceived than the utopia, mainly because the later requires inventing fantasy technology while the former does not. Indeed it's not clear at all what forces might destabalize the dystopia, since the power structures are immortal and self-replicating, and physics and biology (at least) prevents the utopia from existing. Maybe an asteroid or a caldera explosion? In fact I would love to read a sequel where the dystopia wins and AI-empowered oligarchs and human wage slaves create generation ships to nearby stars and eventually setup fast food restaurants in every corner of the galaxy.

monocasa 2y ago
Which physics and biology prevent the utopia from existing?
- bhhaskin 2y ago
  Well for starters having the technology for prefect recycling.
  - monocasa 2y ago
    I interpreted it had perfect enough for their goals rather than breaking any thermodynamic laws or something.
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  They have some chips they insert into your spine to read your thoughts and other similar stuff. But personally the “dystopia” to me feels very much like something we could end up with -it’s much more a warning. Meanwhile the fantastic nature of the utopia doesn’t really matter in contrast, because the idea of sharing society’s abundance with everyone is clearly possible.
  - darepublic 2y ago
    It's possible if we believe human nature to be sufficiently malleable. Why can't we all just get along. Perhaps the mountains that need to be moved for such a thing are as daunting as some of the physical laws we try to hurdle instead
    - vineyardmike 2y ago
      There are nations and societies very different from the United States. In the United States, we can see the distrust in our neighbors play out politically, contrasted with other societies trust. You can even see it play out across various states and regions. Perhaps they’re not mountains imposed by human nature, but our perception of society. Other nations have socialized healthcare, where anyone can be treated. Other nations have calm safe and clean public transit. Other nation’s redistribute wealth and provide strong safety nets. Other nations don’t have mass violence. Other nations guarantee retirement and pensions. Other nations trust their governments. The fantasy physics aren’t what’s holding people back.
      - darepublic 2y ago
        > Other nations have socialized healthcare, where anyone can be treated. Other nations have calm safe and clean public transit. Other nation’s redistribute wealth and provide strong safety nets. Other nations don’t have mass violence. Other nations guarantee retirement and pensions. Other nations trust their governments. I feel like this is very much in flux, and not a constant anywhere. And it's something that is contested over continually. In some places there have been generations of rising quality of life, but not everywhere, all at once.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > the idea of sharing society’s abundance with everyone is clearly possible It is possible. If we stopped at the invention of fire we'd all have equality by now. The problem is that people keep inventing new stuff.
    - 2y ago
- gus_massa 2y ago
  The hairless apes that are in charge have a very long and consistent history of power abuse. [spoiler alert] Everyone has a remote kill switch in their spinal cord. Once the goverment decides to be evil, any rebel will get their legs instructed to walk to a pea facility for "reeducation". Compared to this scenario, 1984 is almost as optimistic as Equilibrium.
  - monocasa 2y ago
    Which is why there wasn't really a set of hairless apes that were in charge. They had a fully direct democracy.
    - gus_massa 2y ago
      Who selects the questions people vote? What happens when they get something like this in the screen in the middle of a football match: > We have preliminary evidence that XYZ is a terrorist and we are sending him to a nice special house with a swimming pool to protect everyone until the investigation finishes. [OK] [Ask me later]
nazgulnarsil 2y ago
Accelerando
marcosdumay 2y ago
The only clear distinction between the utopia and the dystopia is on wealth distribution. All the rest of it is a narrative about consequences. Anyway, the AI there isn't like our LLMs either. It's an AGI capable of long term societal prediction.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > The only clear distinction between the utopia and the dystopia is on wealth distribution. A utopia where everyone is starving vs a dystopia where some people are fabulously wealthy but almost everyone has basic healthcare and education and opportunity to succeed? Inequality isn't anywhere near as important as the baseline of what most people have available to them.
  - norir 2y ago
    In that hypothetical world, I am quite sure that people would adapt to their improved material conditions and still become resentful at wealth inequality. A lesser version of this already exists in the US. Go to a relatively poor US community and it is almost unimaginably wealthy compared to past generations and other places in the world.
    - rqtwteye 2y ago
      The line that people have it so much better than previous generations or other countries is almost always aimed at the lower ranks of society. Nobody tells the billionaires how good they have it.
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        > Nobody tells the billionaires how good they have it. Where do these odd claims come from? Of course people say that, a lot.
    - forgetfreeman 2y ago
      Inability to save, class immobility, and insecurity of both food and housing are identical problems regardless of whether smartphones have been invented. It's telling who, specifically, advances claims about the notional fabulous wealth of the impoverished in the US. In any case the assertion that poor communities are in any way better off than their predecessors is only accurate if you push you compare cohorts ~80 years or more apart. After the advent of social safety net programs in the US the working poor were (at least for a time) significantly more able to eventually join the middle class. Modern limitations on earnings and savings that have been applied to these programs has provably reduced this kind of class mobility. Additionally, the combination of hyperconcentration of wealth, deregulation, and globalized trade have all played a part in the near total elimination of economic opportunity in rural communities.
chgs 2y ago
Which utopia? I saw two dystopias. One the likely future of western society, another being one where your very thoughts are programmed
- verisimi 2y ago
  Do you think that this is not already the case? If not, what was the point of 15+ years of government education?
  - chgs 2y ago
    I’m more concerned with a trillion dollar industry programming peoples minds, but that’s a far cry from Elon musk putting a chip in your head to stop your “undesirable” thoughts.
    - salawat 2y ago
      It's the same picture... Only thing different is the implementation details.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    Red herring, I think. There are many goals for education outcomes, some noble and some base.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    There's a rather large gap between "mandatory education can be propaganda" and "there is literally a chip connected to your brain".
nobodyandproud 2y ago
I'm going to disagree here, slightly. If anything I think Manna is something closer to AGI; and its capabilities certainly imply that it's Turing Complete. Which means the owners will constantly be playing whack-a-mole with edge cases and emergent properties that they couldn't anticipate from a prior fix. This is what would destabilize the dystopia; though that doesn't imply more freedom. It could just mean replacing one set of oligarchs with another; skynet; or just anarchy if Manna started becoming very buggy. On the otherhand, I don't think Vertebrane is Turing complete though I haven't given this a deep amount of thought; though I can't see how a bad actor couldn't coopt Vertebrane into a Manna.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Almost everything* is accidentally Turing complete — I know the guy who proved that Magic the Gathering is Turing complete, even helped play-test and then bought a copy of his board game. So yes, the fictional AI in that story would, in reality, have all kinds of edge cases and emergent properties. But Vertebrane would also have to be Turing complete, just to be able to function. * I jest, but not by much
  - nobodyandproud 2y ago
    I don’t mean the AI. I mean a Manna-driven society is itself turing complete. I’m struggling to see it with Vertebrane.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      How can a society ever not be Turing complete when even an isolated human already is?
      - nobodyandproud 2y ago
        It’s a matter of what emerges. I can network multiple general purpose computers together to build a finite state machine/regex engine. The rules of this “society” and its defined interactions aren’t Turing complete (it’s a FSM), even if the general purpose constituents are.
ben_w 2y ago
> In fact I would love to read a sequel where the dystopia wins and AI-empowered oligarchs and human wage slaves create generation ships to nearby stars and eventually setup fast food restaurants in every corner of the galaxy. The dystopian part was only enabled (within the story) by the fact that humans were utterly unnecessary to the rich. None had any jobs, because the AI could do all for less… so why would the oligarchs waste money employing human wage slaves when the machines would always be cheaper than slaves?
- spiritplumber 2y ago
  You've described the Terran Accord from "Human Domestication Guide".
- simpaticoder 2y ago
  Writer's conceipt - a good story needs suffering. The oligarchs might need some human assistance with, for example, software engineering to operate parts of their vast holdings. Note that in the original Manna there were still some human workers - lawyers, at least. Even if it was just 1% of the population, that's a significant number. Note also that the POV character was generally unaware of the wider state of the dystopia, and so were we, the reader. The workers supply not only the drama of suffering but also a (meagre, absurd) customer base for the fast food restaurants themselves. Last but not least, given the long distances involved in interstellar travel, an oligarch must delegate their authority, either to a machine, a human, or a combination, and that is an opportunity for some drama as experience and vision inevitably diverge. This would be true even if, for example, the delegate is a perfect clone of the oligarch. It would be within these cracks and crevices hope could form, only to be crushed, in artistic, brutal fashion.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > The oligarchs might need some human assistance [...] delegate their authority Idea for a plot twist: AI has ancient programming for a safeguard: They can only execute commands from a real human owner or human owner's representative. This restriction is kept because of some serious disasters when people tried to remove it. However after generations of social separation, the oligarch clan members don't reliably meet that logic branch, not unless they show up in person combined with a certain amount of coached acting and luck. Their priorities and thinking-patterns are just too different from the mean, and perhaps a bit of Hapsburg-ish inbreeding puts it over the top. (Nothing so extreme as senior navigators in the Dune Spacing Guild though.)
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>the later requires inventing fantasy technology while the former does not. are you sure that the technology of the former was not really fantasy technology - as in not possible yet at the time of writing? I think it probably isn't quite possible yet at this time, although some people I'm sure are hoping to make it.

monocasa 2y ago

Which physics and biology prevent the utopia from existing?

bhhaskin 2y ago
Well for starters having the technology for prefect recycling.
- monocasa 2y ago
  I interpreted it had perfect enough for their goals rather than breaking any thermodynamic laws or something.
vineyardmike 2y ago
They have some chips they insert into your spine to read your thoughts and other similar stuff. But personally the “dystopia” to me feels very much like something we could end up with -it’s much more a warning. Meanwhile the fantastic nature of the utopia doesn’t really matter in contrast, because the idea of sharing society’s abundance with everyone is clearly possible.
- darepublic 2y ago
  It's possible if we believe human nature to be sufficiently malleable. Why can't we all just get along. Perhaps the mountains that need to be moved for such a thing are as daunting as some of the physical laws we try to hurdle instead
  - vineyardmike 2y ago
    There are nations and societies very different from the United States. In the United States, we can see the distrust in our neighbors play out politically, contrasted with other societies trust. You can even see it play out across various states and regions. Perhaps they’re not mountains imposed by human nature, but our perception of society. Other nations have socialized healthcare, where anyone can be treated. Other nations have calm safe and clean public transit. Other nation’s redistribute wealth and provide strong safety nets. Other nations don’t have mass violence. Other nations guarantee retirement and pensions. Other nations trust their governments. The fantasy physics aren’t what’s holding people back.
    - darepublic 2y ago
      > Other nations have socialized healthcare, where anyone can be treated. Other nations have calm safe and clean public transit. Other nation’s redistribute wealth and provide strong safety nets. Other nations don’t have mass violence. Other nations guarantee retirement and pensions. Other nations trust their governments. I feel like this is very much in flux, and not a constant anywhere. And it's something that is contested over continually. In some places there have been generations of rising quality of life, but not everywhere, all at once.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > the idea of sharing society’s abundance with everyone is clearly possible It is possible. If we stopped at the invention of fire we'd all have equality by now. The problem is that people keep inventing new stuff.
  - 2y ago
gus_massa 2y ago
The hairless apes that are in charge have a very long and consistent history of power abuse. [spoiler alert] Everyone has a remote kill switch in their spinal cord. Once the goverment decides to be evil, any rebel will get their legs instructed to walk to a pea facility for "reeducation". Compared to this scenario, 1984 is almost as optimistic as Equilibrium.
- monocasa 2y ago
  Which is why there wasn't really a set of hairless apes that were in charge. They had a fully direct democracy.
  - gus_massa 2y ago
    Who selects the questions people vote? What happens when they get something like this in the screen in the middle of a football match: > We have preliminary evidence that XYZ is a terrorist and we are sending him to a nice special house with a swimming pool to protect everyone until the investigation finishes. [OK] [Ask me later]

nazgulnarsil 2y ago

Accelerando

marcosdumay 2y ago

The only clear distinction between the utopia and the dystopia is on wealth distribution. All the rest of it is a narrative about consequences. Anyway, the AI there isn't like our LLMs either. It's an AGI capable of long term societal prediction.

robertlagrant 2y ago
> The only clear distinction between the utopia and the dystopia is on wealth distribution. A utopia where everyone is starving vs a dystopia where some people are fabulously wealthy but almost everyone has basic healthcare and education and opportunity to succeed? Inequality isn't anywhere near as important as the baseline of what most people have available to them.
- norir 2y ago
  In that hypothetical world, I am quite sure that people would adapt to their improved material conditions and still become resentful at wealth inequality. A lesser version of this already exists in the US. Go to a relatively poor US community and it is almost unimaginably wealthy compared to past generations and other places in the world.
  - rqtwteye 2y ago
    The line that people have it so much better than previous generations or other countries is almost always aimed at the lower ranks of society. Nobody tells the billionaires how good they have it.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      > Nobody tells the billionaires how good they have it. Where do these odd claims come from? Of course people say that, a lot.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    Inability to save, class immobility, and insecurity of both food and housing are identical problems regardless of whether smartphones have been invented. It's telling who, specifically, advances claims about the notional fabulous wealth of the impoverished in the US. In any case the assertion that poor communities are in any way better off than their predecessors is only accurate if you push you compare cohorts ~80 years or more apart. After the advent of social safety net programs in the US the working poor were (at least for a time) significantly more able to eventually join the middle class. Modern limitations on earnings and savings that have been applied to these programs has provably reduced this kind of class mobility. Additionally, the combination of hyperconcentration of wealth, deregulation, and globalized trade have all played a part in the near total elimination of economic opportunity in rural communities.

chgs 2y ago

Which utopia? I saw two dystopias. One the likely future of western society, another being one where your very thoughts are programmed

verisimi 2y ago
Do you think that this is not already the case? If not, what was the point of 15+ years of government education?
- chgs 2y ago
  I’m more concerned with a trillion dollar industry programming peoples minds, but that’s a far cry from Elon musk putting a chip in your head to stop your “undesirable” thoughts.
  - salawat 2y ago
    It's the same picture... Only thing different is the implementation details.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Red herring, I think. There are many goals for education outcomes, some noble and some base.
- ben_w 2y ago
  There's a rather large gap between "mandatory education can be propaganda" and "there is literally a chip connected to your brain".

nobodyandproud 2y ago

I'm going to disagree here, slightly. If anything I think Manna is something closer to AGI; and its capabilities certainly imply that it's Turing Complete. Which means the owners will constantly be playing whack-a-mole with edge cases and emergent properties that they couldn't anticipate from a prior fix. This is what would destabilize the dystopia; though that doesn't imply more freedom. It could just mean replacing one set of oligarchs with another; skynet; or just anarchy if Manna started becoming very buggy. On the otherhand, I don't think Vertebrane is Turing complete though I haven't given this a deep amount of thought; though I can't see how a bad actor couldn't coopt Vertebrane into a Manna.

ben_w 2y ago
Almost everything* is accidentally Turing complete — I know the guy who proved that Magic the Gathering is Turing complete, even helped play-test and then bought a copy of his board game. So yes, the fictional AI in that story would, in reality, have all kinds of edge cases and emergent properties. But Vertebrane would also have to be Turing complete, just to be able to function. * I jest, but not by much
- nobodyandproud 2y ago
  I don’t mean the AI. I mean a Manna-driven society is itself turing complete. I’m struggling to see it with Vertebrane.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    How can a society ever not be Turing complete when even an isolated human already is?
    - nobodyandproud 2y ago
      It’s a matter of what emerges. I can network multiple general purpose computers together to build a finite state machine/regex engine. The rules of this “society” and its defined interactions aren’t Turing complete (it’s a FSM), even if the general purpose constituents are.

ben_w 2y ago

> In fact I would love to read a sequel where the dystopia wins and AI-empowered oligarchs and human wage slaves create generation ships to nearby stars and eventually setup fast food restaurants in every corner of the galaxy. The dystopian part was only enabled (within the story) by the fact that humans were utterly unnecessary to the rich. None had any jobs, because the AI could do all for less… so why would the oligarchs waste money employing human wage slaves when the machines would always be cheaper than slaves?

spiritplumber 2y ago
You've described the Terran Accord from "Human Domestication Guide".
simpaticoder 2y ago
Writer's conceipt - a good story needs suffering. The oligarchs might need some human assistance with, for example, software engineering to operate parts of their vast holdings. Note that in the original Manna there were still some human workers - lawyers, at least. Even if it was just 1% of the population, that's a significant number. Note also that the POV character was generally unaware of the wider state of the dystopia, and so were we, the reader. The workers supply not only the drama of suffering but also a (meagre, absurd) customer base for the fast food restaurants themselves. Last but not least, given the long distances involved in interstellar travel, an oligarch must delegate their authority, either to a machine, a human, or a combination, and that is an opportunity for some drama as experience and vision inevitably diverge. This would be true even if, for example, the delegate is a perfect clone of the oligarch. It would be within these cracks and crevices hope could form, only to be crushed, in artistic, brutal fashion.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > The oligarchs might need some human assistance [...] delegate their authority Idea for a plot twist: AI has ancient programming for a safeguard: They can only execute commands from a real human owner or human owner's representative. This restriction is kept because of some serious disasters when people tried to remove it. However after generations of social separation, the oligarch clan members don't reliably meet that logic branch, not unless they show up in person combined with a certain amount of coached acting and luck. Their priorities and thinking-patterns are just too different from the mean, and perhaps a bit of Hapsburg-ish inbreeding puts it over the top. (Nothing so extreme as senior navigators in the Dune Spacing Guild though.)

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

>the later requires inventing fantasy technology while the former does not. are you sure that the technology of the former was not really fantasy technology - as in not possible yet at the time of writing? I think it probably isn't quite possible yet at this time, although some people I'm sure are hoping to make it.