5 ms·

We're literally running out of science fiction topics faster than we can create new ones If I started a list with the things that were comically sci Fi when I

by ghurtado 10mo ago

We're literally running out of science fiction topics faster than we can create new ones If I started a list with the things that were comically sci Fi when I was a kid, and are a reality today, I'd be here until next Tuesday.

UltraSane 10mo ago
Not at all, you just need to read different scifi. I suggest Greg Egan and Stephen Baxter and Derek Künsken and The Quantum Thief series
KingMob 10mo ago
Time to create the Torment Nexus, I guess
- varjag 10mo ago
  There's a thriving startup scene in that direction.
  - BiteCode_dev 10mo ago
    Wasn't that the elevator pitch for Palentir? Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I mean, they are literally called "the stuff Sauron uses to control his evil forces". It's so on the nose it reads like an anime plot.
    - notarobot123 10mo ago
      To the proud contrarian, "the empire did nothing wrong". Maybe Sci-fi has actually played a role in the "memetic desire" of some of the titans of tech who are trying to bring about these worlds more-or-less intentionally. I guess it's not as much of a dystopia if you're on top and its not evil if you think of it as inevitable anyway.
      - psychoslave 10mo ago
        I don't know. Walking on everybody's face to climb a human pyramid, one don't make much sincere friends. And one certainly are rightfully going down a spiral of paranoia. There are so many people already on fast track to hate anyone else, if they have social consensus that indeed someone is a freaking bastard which only deserve to die, that's a lot of stress to cope with. Future is inevitable, but only ignorants of self predictive ability are thinking that what's going to populate future is inevitable.
    - kbrkbr 10mo ago
      Stock buying as a political or ethical statement is not much of a thing. For one the stocks will still be bought by persons with less strung opinions, and secondly it does not lend itself well to virtue signaling.
      - ruszki 10mo ago
        I think, meme stocks contradict you.
        iwontberude 10mo ago
        Meme stocks are a symptom of the death of the American dream. Economic malaise leads to unsophisticated risk taking.
        CamperBob2 10mo ago
        Well, two things lead to unsophisticated risk-taking, right... economic malaise, and unlimited surplus. Both conditions are easy to spot in today's world.
        iwontberude 10mo ago
        unlimited surplus does not pass the sniff test for me
    - duskdozer 10mo ago
      To be honest, while I'd heard of it over a decade ago and I've read LOTR and I've been paying attention to privacy longer than most, I didn't ever really look into what it did until I started hearing more about it in the past year or two. But yeah lots of people don't really buy into the idea of their small contribution to a large problem being a problem.
      - Lerc 10mo ago
        >But yeah lots of people don't really buy into the idea of their small contribution to a large problem being a problem. As an abstract idea I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that the size of any contribution to a problem should be measured as a relative proportion of total influence. The carbon footprint is a good example, if each individual focuses on reducing their small individual contribution then they could neglect systemic changes that would reduce everyone's contribution to a greater extent. Any scientist working on a method to remove a problem shouldn't abstain from contributing to the problem while they work. Or to put it as a catchy phrase. Someone working on a cleaner light source shouldn't have to work in the dark.
        duskdozer 10mo ago
        >As an abstract idea I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that the size of any contribution to a problem should be measured as a relative proportion of total influence. Right, I think you have responsibility for your 1/<global population>th (arguably considerably more though, for first-worlders) of the problem. What I see is something like refusal to consider swapping out a two-stroke-engine-powered tungsten lightbulb with an LED of equivalent brightness, CRI, and color temperature, because it won't unilaterally solve the problem.
    - quesera 10mo ago
      > Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I proudly owned zero shares of Microsoft stock, in the 1980s and 1990s. :) I own no Palantir today. It's a Pyrrhic victory, but sometimes that's all you can do.
    - CamperBob2 10mo ago
      Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I've been tempted to. "Everything will be terrible if these guys succeed, but at least I'll be rich. If they fail I'll lose money, but since that's the outcome I prefer anyway, the loss won't bother me." Trouble is, that ship has arguably already sailed. No matter how rapidly things go to hell, it will take many years before PLTR is profitable enough to justify its half-trillion dollar market cap.
    - monocasa 10mo ago
      It goes a bit deeper than that since they got funding in the wake of 9/11 and the requests for intelligence and investigative branches of government to do better and coalescing their information to prevent attacks. So "panopticon that if it had been used properly, would have prevented the destruction of two towers" while ignoring the obvious "are we the baddies?"
- morkalork 10mo ago
  Saw a joke about grok being a stand-in for Elon's children and had the realization he's the kind of father who would lobotomie and brainwipe his progeny for back-talk. Good thing he can only do that to their virtual stand-in and not some biological clones!
  - pwdisswordfishy 9mo ago
    This is a strange comment. It doesn't even count as unfalsifiable, just unsupported. Elon Musk has actual children (lots, in fact). If we want to know what he "would" do, we can just look. We don't have to use our imaginations (or entertain the fanciful claims of prognosticators and soothsayers).
nottorp 10mo ago
Almost no scifi has predicted world changing "qualitative" changes. As an example, portable phones have been predicted. Portable smartphones that are more like chat and payment terminals with a voice function no one uses any more ... not so much.
- 6510 10mo ago
  That it has to be believable is a major constraint that reality doesn't have.
  - marci 10mo ago
    In other words, sometimes, things happen in reality that, if you were to read it in a fictional story or see in a movie, you would think they were major plot holes.
- ajuc 10mo ago
  Stanisław Lem predicted Kindle back in 1950s, together with remote libraries, global network, touchscreens and audiobooks.
  - nottorp 10mo ago
    And Jules verne predicted rockets. I still move that it's quantitative predictions not qualitative. I mean, all Kindle does for me is save me space. I don't have to store all those books now. Who predicted the humble internet forum though? Or usenet before it?
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ghaff 10mo ago
      Kindles are just books and books are already mostly fairly compact and inexpensive long-form entertainment and information. They're convenient but if they went away tomorrow, my life wouldn't really change in any material way. That's not really the case with smartphones much less the internet more broadly.

UltraSane 10mo ago

Not at all, you just need to read different scifi. I suggest Greg Egan and Stephen Baxter and Derek Künsken and The Quantum Thief series

KingMob 10mo ago

Time to create the Torment Nexus, I guess

varjag 10mo ago
There's a thriving startup scene in that direction.
- BiteCode_dev 10mo ago
  Wasn't that the elevator pitch for Palentir? Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I mean, they are literally called "the stuff Sauron uses to control his evil forces". It's so on the nose it reads like an anime plot.
  - notarobot123 10mo ago
    To the proud contrarian, "the empire did nothing wrong". Maybe Sci-fi has actually played a role in the "memetic desire" of some of the titans of tech who are trying to bring about these worlds more-or-less intentionally. I guess it's not as much of a dystopia if you're on top and its not evil if you think of it as inevitable anyway.
    - psychoslave 10mo ago
      I don't know. Walking on everybody's face to climb a human pyramid, one don't make much sincere friends. And one certainly are rightfully going down a spiral of paranoia. There are so many people already on fast track to hate anyone else, if they have social consensus that indeed someone is a freaking bastard which only deserve to die, that's a lot of stress to cope with. Future is inevitable, but only ignorants of self predictive ability are thinking that what's going to populate future is inevitable.
  - kbrkbr 10mo ago
    Stock buying as a political or ethical statement is not much of a thing. For one the stocks will still be bought by persons with less strung opinions, and secondly it does not lend itself well to virtue signaling.
    - ruszki 10mo ago
      I think, meme stocks contradict you.
      - iwontberude 10mo ago
        Meme stocks are a symptom of the death of the American dream. Economic malaise leads to unsophisticated risk taking.
        CamperBob2 10mo ago
        Well, two things lead to unsophisticated risk-taking, right... economic malaise, and unlimited surplus. Both conditions are easy to spot in today's world.
        iwontberude 10mo ago
        unlimited surplus does not pass the sniff test for me
  - duskdozer 10mo ago
    To be honest, while I'd heard of it over a decade ago and I've read LOTR and I've been paying attention to privacy longer than most, I didn't ever really look into what it did until I started hearing more about it in the past year or two. But yeah lots of people don't really buy into the idea of their small contribution to a large problem being a problem.
    - Lerc 10mo ago
      >But yeah lots of people don't really buy into the idea of their small contribution to a large problem being a problem. As an abstract idea I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that the size of any contribution to a problem should be measured as a relative proportion of total influence. The carbon footprint is a good example, if each individual focuses on reducing their small individual contribution then they could neglect systemic changes that would reduce everyone's contribution to a greater extent. Any scientist working on a method to remove a problem shouldn't abstain from contributing to the problem while they work. Or to put it as a catchy phrase. Someone working on a cleaner light source shouldn't have to work in the dark.
      - duskdozer 10mo ago
        >As an abstract idea I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that the size of any contribution to a problem should be measured as a relative proportion of total influence. Right, I think you have responsibility for your 1/<global population>th (arguably considerably more though, for first-worlders) of the problem. What I see is something like refusal to consider swapping out a two-stroke-engine-powered tungsten lightbulb with an LED of equivalent brightness, CRI, and color temperature, because it won't unilaterally solve the problem.
  - quesera 10mo ago
    > Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I proudly owned zero shares of Microsoft stock, in the 1980s and 1990s. :) I own no Palantir today. It's a Pyrrhic victory, but sometimes that's all you can do.
  - CamperBob2 10mo ago
    Still can't believe people buy their stock, given that they are the closest thing to a James Bond villain, just because it goes up. I've been tempted to. "Everything will be terrible if these guys succeed, but at least I'll be rich. If they fail I'll lose money, but since that's the outcome I prefer anyway, the loss won't bother me." Trouble is, that ship has arguably already sailed. No matter how rapidly things go to hell, it will take many years before PLTR is profitable enough to justify its half-trillion dollar market cap.
  - monocasa 10mo ago
    It goes a bit deeper than that since they got funding in the wake of 9/11 and the requests for intelligence and investigative branches of government to do better and coalescing their information to prevent attacks. So "panopticon that if it had been used properly, would have prevented the destruction of two towers" while ignoring the obvious "are we the baddies?"
morkalork 10mo ago
Saw a joke about grok being a stand-in for Elon's children and had the realization he's the kind of father who would lobotomie and brainwipe his progeny for back-talk. Good thing he can only do that to their virtual stand-in and not some biological clones!
- pwdisswordfishy 9mo ago
  This is a strange comment. It doesn't even count as unfalsifiable, just unsupported. Elon Musk has actual children (lots, in fact). If we want to know what he "would" do, we can just look. We don't have to use our imaginations (or entertain the fanciful claims of prognosticators and soothsayers).

nottorp 10mo ago

Almost no scifi has predicted world changing "qualitative" changes. As an example, portable phones have been predicted. Portable smartphones that are more like chat and payment terminals with a voice function no one uses any more ... not so much.

6510 10mo ago
That it has to be believable is a major constraint that reality doesn't have.
- marci 10mo ago
  In other words, sometimes, things happen in reality that, if you were to read it in a fictional story or see in a movie, you would think they were major plot holes.
ajuc 10mo ago
Stanisław Lem predicted Kindle back in 1950s, together with remote libraries, global network, touchscreens and audiobooks.
- nottorp 10mo ago
  And Jules verne predicted rockets. I still move that it's quantitative predictions not qualitative. I mean, all Kindle does for me is save me space. I don't have to store all those books now. Who predicted the humble internet forum though? Or usenet before it?
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 10mo ago
    Kindles are just books and books are already mostly fairly compact and inexpensive long-form entertainment and information. They're convenient but if they went away tomorrow, my life wouldn't really change in any material way. That's not really the case with smartphones much less the internet more broadly.