7 ms·

Elon Musk Just Doesn't Understand the Sci-Fi Visions of Iain M. Banks

57 points by mitchbob 2y ago

theothertimcook 2y ago
“If you must know, I am a utopian anarchist of the kind best described by Iain Banks,”
- aloisdg 2y ago
  I guest Musk cant difference between anarchism and libertarianism
  - krapp 2y ago
    To be fair, I've always considered libertarians to be, for the most part, anarchists who won't commit.
    - euroderf 2y ago
      This seems fair+true. "Libertarian anarchists" is like "jumbo olives".. they want to build their castles in the sky in a free-floating environment that is only free in the particular way that they want; violators will be persecuted. Anarchosyndicalism or GTFO. YMMV.
  - jbu 2y ago
    “That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” - Kim Stanley Robinson
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    I mean he's also very much not a libertarian. He's an apparatchik of an authoritarian government. That's pretty much the opposite of being a libertarian. (Pedantically, there's a lot of overlap between anarchists and left-libertarians, but the terms tainted enough now that no-one much really considers themselves a left-libertarian anymore.)
- apercu 2y ago
  It’s amazing that someone with access to so many resources lacks any basic self awareness.
0_gravitas 2y ago
I've said before that Musk must have read Surface Detail and assumed Veppers was some kind of 'tragic hero'. It is remarkable because Banks, as much as I love his writing, is __rarely subtle__ about his beliefs and who the "good guys" are. (Yes there is a lot of exploration of the grey areas and inhumanities, and thereby legitimately critical questions of the titular society- but Bank's himself has said that he would very much like to live in the Culture, even considering all the uglier parts.)
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  > It is remarkable because Banks, as much as I love his writing, is __rarely subtle__ about his beliefs and who the "good guys" are. My wife writes some fiction, and one thing I've learned from observing her interaction with test readers is that no matter how heavy-handed the writing, a fair proportion of readers will still misunderstand it. It's practically impossible to make anything so explicit that nobody will get it wrong, even with a bunch of repetition. Though, most egregious misreading activity does seem to be confined to the same set of readers, across discussion of her test-reads, other writers she knows' test reads by the same readers, and just general conversation about other published fiction—that is, certain readers struggle to follow seemingly every damn thing they read, while others almost never make these kinds of errors. I find it hard to relate to wanting to continue reading books while being so constantly confused by their content, but they do it anyway. Completely alien to me, their experience of reading must be rather impressionistic and seems unpleasant, but to each their own.
  - mncharity 2y ago
    > observing her interaction with test readers [...] a fair proportion of readers will still misunderstand it I did some exploratory education videos, and associated user testing. A hobby project. And I got bitten by what I'm told was a noob mistake - a cartoon character reads a simple sign aloud. Shortly afterward, I'd stop the video for feedback, and get confusion as if the scene wasn't even there. I'd sometimes then replay it, and get "oh yes, this version is much better". Even firm disbelief that they'd already seen it seconds earlier. Apparently the cognitive load spike of having simultaneous reading and listening to do, is known to hammer comprehension of both. I wonder if there's a body of similar insights for fiction writing. Or transferable insights from say, how to disrupt misunderstandings in science education content. And then, of course, whether these might be made available as automated editor or ghostwriter tooling.
jiggawatts 2y ago
Ironically the author of this article missed the key theme that runs throughout the Culture novels: Humans are mere pets in a world where superhuman artificial intelligence exists. Anyone that wants this future for humanity, wants to be a pet, simple as that.
- 0_gravitas 2y ago
  Calling it _the_ key theme is stretching it quite a bit imo
  - euroderf 2y ago
    Agreed. The Minds keep us as pets if you want to view it that way, but they have their own "Society of Minds" to keep each other amused and engaged, and it takes very little of their bandwidth to maintain human concentrations and the general regional-galactical operating environment.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Unlike everything else like the sex changing, it’s in every book and is a plot element instead of mere “background colour”. All of the big decisions are made by the Minds, and every time a human thinks they’re doing something of their own accord, it is implied (or explicitly stated) that they’re being manipulated by a Mind. Several of the novels state this outright, including mentioning that Marain, the language of the culture, was explicitly designed to “guide” the thoughts of its human speakers in the “right way” as decided by the Minds that worked on its design. Handcuffs for the human mind so integrated that nobody even realises they’re shackled. The humans aren’t prisoners, they’re pets allowed to roam “outside”, but they’re not the agents of their future in any real sense. PS: Horrific betrayal by a highly trusted character in a position of father-like authority is a running theme in Banks’ works. The more utopian and idealistic the scenario, the greater the horror the reader can experience when that is shattered by the realisation that it was all a manipulation. The Wasp Factory, one of his earlier works, makes this the most explicit with the betrayal of the protagonist’s sexual identity by their own father, but since that book Banks has learned to make this theme less explicit and more implicit, waiting for the reader to discover it on their own and have the “Oh. Ohhhh! Oh God.” moment. Clearly many people missed it in the later Culture books…
simpaticoder 2y ago
I'm not so sure about the author's thesis. One quote alone explains it, "it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence." If indeed Musk believes this, then his actions now matter not at all, except insofar as it either helps or harms the birth of "digital superintelligence". This is a similar "ends justify the means" argument to the "effective altruists" and the general idea to "not miss the forest for the trees", the forest being long-term viability of humanity, the trees being individual well-being. During peacetime, making such an argument justifies the selfish and destructive action they wanted to take anyway. The framing of the assertion is impossible to make an objective assessment of the success of an action, since such an assessment may take a hundred, or a thousand, years. So really there is no way for anyone to judge whether an act is good or bad in this framework, leaving it only as a matter of judgement of the actor. In this sense, Musk's invocation of Banks is simple megalomania with more steps.
- hsshhshshjk 2y ago
  > it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence. Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture? Ironically, many of the alien species in Banks's novels have "sublimation" as their goal. Their idea is to transcend space and time. https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed So I guess it's just super intelligent turtles all the way down?
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    It's just a similarity between millenarian religious movements, which christianity is and this is also. But it isn't the only, most immediate, or most similar predecessor imo.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    > Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture? Yeah, honestly most Nerd Religion (EA, LessWrong-style 'rationality', etc), is basically just reheated Christianity. Notably, Roko's Basilisk (you should work for the furtherance of magic robots at all costs, lest a future omnipotent magic robot torture a perfect replica of you forever for not doing so) is just a restatement of Pascal's wager, with all the attendant problems.
lacker 2y ago
Banks has a vision of the future where space travel, AI, and near-immortality are all widely distributed. What other science fiction is optimistic on a grand scale like that? You can appreciate the overall Banks vision without agreeing on every particular political stance.

57 points by mitchbob 2y ago

theothertimcook 2y ago

“If you must know, I am a utopian anarchist of the kind best described by Iain Banks,”

aloisdg 2y ago
I guest Musk cant difference between anarchism and libertarianism
- krapp 2y ago
  To be fair, I've always considered libertarians to be, for the most part, anarchists who won't commit.
  - euroderf 2y ago
    This seems fair+true. "Libertarian anarchists" is like "jumbo olives".. they want to build their castles in the sky in a free-floating environment that is only free in the particular way that they want; violators will be persecuted. Anarchosyndicalism or GTFO. YMMV.
- jbu 2y ago
  “That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” - Kim Stanley Robinson
- rsynnott 2y ago
  I mean he's also very much not a libertarian. He's an apparatchik of an authoritarian government. That's pretty much the opposite of being a libertarian. (Pedantically, there's a lot of overlap between anarchists and left-libertarians, but the terms tainted enough now that no-one much really considers themselves a left-libertarian anymore.)
apercu 2y ago
It’s amazing that someone with access to so many resources lacks any basic self awareness.

0_gravitas 2y ago

I've said before that Musk must have read Surface Detail and assumed Veppers was some kind of 'tragic hero'. It is remarkable because Banks, as much as I love his writing, is __rarely subtle__ about his beliefs and who the "good guys" are. (Yes there is a lot of exploration of the grey areas and inhumanities, and thereby legitimately critical questions of the titular society- but Bank's himself has said that he would very much like to live in the Culture, even considering all the uglier parts.)

alabastervlog 2y ago
> It is remarkable because Banks, as much as I love his writing, is __rarely subtle__ about his beliefs and who the "good guys" are. My wife writes some fiction, and one thing I've learned from observing her interaction with test readers is that no matter how heavy-handed the writing, a fair proportion of readers will still misunderstand it. It's practically impossible to make anything so explicit that nobody will get it wrong, even with a bunch of repetition. Though, most egregious misreading activity does seem to be confined to the same set of readers, across discussion of her test-reads, other writers she knows' test reads by the same readers, and just general conversation about other published fiction—that is, certain readers struggle to follow seemingly every damn thing they read, while others almost never make these kinds of errors. I find it hard to relate to wanting to continue reading books while being so constantly confused by their content, but they do it anyway. Completely alien to me, their experience of reading must be rather impressionistic and seems unpleasant, but to each their own.
- mncharity 2y ago
  > observing her interaction with test readers [...] a fair proportion of readers will still misunderstand it I did some exploratory education videos, and associated user testing. A hobby project. And I got bitten by what I'm told was a noob mistake - a cartoon character reads a simple sign aloud. Shortly afterward, I'd stop the video for feedback, and get confusion as if the scene wasn't even there. I'd sometimes then replay it, and get "oh yes, this version is much better". Even firm disbelief that they'd already seen it seconds earlier. Apparently the cognitive load spike of having simultaneous reading and listening to do, is known to hammer comprehension of both. I wonder if there's a body of similar insights for fiction writing. Or transferable insights from say, how to disrupt misunderstandings in science education content. And then, of course, whether these might be made available as automated editor or ghostwriter tooling.

jiggawatts 2y ago

Ironically the author of this article missed the key theme that runs throughout the Culture novels: Humans are mere pets in a world where superhuman artificial intelligence exists. Anyone that wants this future for humanity, wants to be a pet, simple as that.

0_gravitas 2y ago
Calling it _the_ key theme is stretching it quite a bit imo
- euroderf 2y ago
  Agreed. The Minds keep us as pets if you want to view it that way, but they have their own "Society of Minds" to keep each other amused and engaged, and it takes very little of their bandwidth to maintain human concentrations and the general regional-galactical operating environment.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Unlike everything else like the sex changing, it’s in every book and is a plot element instead of mere “background colour”. All of the big decisions are made by the Minds, and every time a human thinks they’re doing something of their own accord, it is implied (or explicitly stated) that they’re being manipulated by a Mind. Several of the novels state this outright, including mentioning that Marain, the language of the culture, was explicitly designed to “guide” the thoughts of its human speakers in the “right way” as decided by the Minds that worked on its design. Handcuffs for the human mind so integrated that nobody even realises they’re shackled. The humans aren’t prisoners, they’re pets allowed to roam “outside”, but they’re not the agents of their future in any real sense. PS: Horrific betrayal by a highly trusted character in a position of father-like authority is a running theme in Banks’ works. The more utopian and idealistic the scenario, the greater the horror the reader can experience when that is shattered by the realisation that it was all a manipulation. The Wasp Factory, one of his earlier works, makes this the most explicit with the betrayal of the protagonist’s sexual identity by their own father, but since that book Banks has learned to make this theme less explicit and more implicit, waiting for the reader to discover it on their own and have the “Oh. Ohhhh! Oh God.” moment. Clearly many people missed it in the later Culture books…

simpaticoder 2y ago

I'm not so sure about the author's thesis. One quote alone explains it, "it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence." If indeed Musk believes this, then his actions now matter not at all, except insofar as it either helps or harms the birth of "digital superintelligence". This is a similar "ends justify the means" argument to the "effective altruists" and the general idea to "not miss the forest for the trees", the forest being long-term viability of humanity, the trees being individual well-being. During peacetime, making such an argument justifies the selfish and destructive action they wanted to take anyway. The framing of the assertion is impossible to make an objective assessment of the success of an action, since such an assessment may take a hundred, or a thousand, years. So really there is no way for anyone to judge whether an act is good or bad in this framework, leaving it only as a matter of judgement of the actor. In this sense, Musk's invocation of Banks is simple megalomania with more steps.

hsshhshshjk 2y ago
> it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence. Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture? Ironically, many of the alien species in Banks's novels have "sublimation" as their goal. Their idea is to transcend space and time. https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed So I guess it's just super intelligent turtles all the way down?
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  It's just a similarity between millenarian religious movements, which christianity is and this is also. But it isn't the only, most immediate, or most similar predecessor imo.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture? Yeah, honestly most Nerd Religion (EA, LessWrong-style 'rationality', etc), is basically just reheated Christianity. Notably, Roko's Basilisk (you should work for the furtherance of magic robots at all costs, lest a future omnipotent magic robot torture a perfect replica of you forever for not doing so) is just a restatement of Pascal's wager, with all the attendant problems.

lacker 2y ago

Banks has a vision of the future where space travel, AI, and near-immortality are all widely distributed. What other science fiction is optimistic on a grand scale like that? You can appreciate the overall Banks vision without agreeing on every particular political stance.