World building 301: Some Projections - Charlie Stross

"I'm going to use some of his mojo as a jumping off point for asking: what is the world going to look like in 2032? And in 2092?

It's an important question. I expect to be around in 2032, albeit somewhat more creaky (I'll be 68) — the state of the world in 2032 is a matter of personal interest. By 2092 ... well, if I'm still alive in 2092 there will have been medical breakthroughs, because I'd be 128 years old, and that exceeds the current boundary with which human life expectancy converges (which is roughly 121-122). My grandfather died a couple of months short of his 70th birthday; my father is still going strong at 87: a straight line extrapolation would peg me at making it past 104, although I don't think I'm as healthy as dad. So it's a matter of rather more theoretical interest to me, but nevertheless worth worrying about just in case the next 20-80 years bring us some massive breakthroughs in life prolongation.

What do I predict for 2032?"


4.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/01/world-building-301-some-projec.html

World building 201: Heuristics - Charlie Stross

"The first thing to note is that there's more than one way to do it. Which is to say: worldbuilding in SF and fantasy is by definition a divergent process, because no two people are going to come up with the same visualization even if you give them the same goal ("you're going to write a space opera in which our hero, raised by poor but honest folks on a small farming planet, goes forth to discover his destiny ...") — give me that brief and I'll come up with something utterly different from George Lucas, I promise!

So here are some rules of thumb I use, tending towards an increasingly narrow focus. (Sorry if you were expecting me to address the broader uses of confabulation as a fictional tool; this is very much a set of practical guidelines rather than an examination of the theory behind the activity.)"


4 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/11/world-building-201-heuristics.html

Worldbuilding 101 - Charles Stross

"One of the unusual features of SF and fantasy genre literature is that they rely on worldbuilding to an unusual degree. (I note in passing that the SF Encyclopedia doesn't have an entry for worldbuilding yet, hence the wikipedia definition.)


When we write fiction in the realist mode, set in the present day, we can rely on the author and reader's shared experience of the world they live in to sketch in a lot of background details. There's no need for a mainstream author to work out the constitutional structure of the British government, for example, unless they're writing a thriller about British constitutional law; likewise, they can refer to a Ford Transit in the knowledge that readers will know what one of those is. (Except they can't — the brand name applies to two hilariously different families of vehicles in Europe and the United States. But that's a localization issue.)"


3.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/11/world-building-101.html

Zombies - Charles Stross

"What can we do with zombies that is different?

I have an idea. Postulate a near-future setting, for values of "near future" approximating 20-30 years hence. A cure for cellular senescence is found, and it's cheap. One injection, and your physical condition gradually reverts to where you were at age 20, over a period of years. It's not a miracle cure: it won't re-grow lost tissues, it doesn't cure cancer, it doesn't cure diabetes, it doesn't stop heart disease ... but if you can beat all of the above, you can in principle live indefinitely and in fairly good physical health. Moreover, it comes along at the same time as much better treatments for cancer and cardiovascular disease, expensive treatments to re-grow damaged organs or limbs, and the ability to clone up a new pancreas from stem cells."


3.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/09/zombies.html

Q and A at Apple Part 2 - Charles Stross

"Charlie discusses Knuth, 3D printers and the law, Bitcoin and the future of publishing."




4.5 out of 5

Q and A at Apple Part 3 - Charles Stross

"In the final part of the Q&A, Charlie talks about e-books and DRM, different companies' responses to DMCA takedown notices, how writers are paid and compares text editors."





4.5 out of 5

Q and A at Apple Part 1 - Charles Stross

The first part of Charles Stross' question and answer session after his reading.




4.5 out of 5

USENIX 2011 Keynote: Network Security in the Medium Term 2061-2561 AD - Charles Stross

"Unlike you, I am not a security professional. However, we probably share a common human trait, namely that none of us enjoy looking like a fool in front of a large audience. I therefore chose the title of my talk to minimize the risk of ridicule: if we should meet up in 2061, much less in the 26th century, you’re welcome to rib me about this talk. Because I’ll be happy to still be alive to rib.

So what follows should be seen as a farrago of speculation by a guy who earns his living telling entertaining lies for money.

The question I’m going to spin entertaining lies around is this: what is network security going to be about once we get past the current sigmoid curve of accelerating progress and into a steady state, when Moore’s first law is long since burned out, and networked computing appliances have been around for as long as steam engines?"


4.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/08/usenix-2011-keynote-network-se.html

Crime and Punishment - Charles Stross

"How do you run a complex society that relies on most people staying within agreed behavioural limits most of the time, if your legal system is not merely broken but *can’t be fixed* because it’s based on false assumptions?"


3.5 out of 5

http://www.orbitbooks.net/2011/07/15/crime-and-punishment/

Artificial Stupids - Charles Stross

"One of the hoariest of science fictional archetypes is the idea of the artificial intelligence — be it the tin man robot servant, or the murderous artificial brain in a box that is HAL 9000. And it’s not hard to see the attraction of AI to the jobbing SF writer. It’s a wonderful tool for exploring ideas about the nature of identity. It’s a great adversary or threat (‘War Games’, ‘The Forbin Project’), it’s a cheap stand-in for alien intelligences — it is the Other of the mind.

The only trouble is, it doesn’t make sense."


3 out of 5

http://www.orbitbooks.net/2011/07/08/artificial-stupids/

Rule 34 and the shape of things to come - Charles Stross

"Who, five years ago, would have predicted that we’d have had a global banking crisis, a wave of democratic revolutions in the Middle East, a black President of the United States, and three nuclear meltdowns in Japan? It sounds like the back story for a bad technothriller. On the other hand, I don’t see a technothriller author as being likely to predict a 1970s fashion revival, vinyl 45s making a come-back, or Apple being the #1 smartphone manufacturer. (In 2006, Apple didn’t have a phone. They made computers and mp3 players.) So, to a first approximation: the shape of the future is made up both of big pieces (political upheavals, natural disasters) and ephemera (steampunk and smartphones)."


3 out of 5

http://www.orbitbooks.net/2011/07/01/rule-34-and-the-shape-of-things-to-come/

Obsolete existential threats 1: The Bomb - Charles Stross

"Yes, I know witchcraft accusations are a major problem in some parts of the world even today: and there's a 1950s cold war replay between India and Pakistan, with hundreds of H-bombs on each side and a hot line between New Delhi and Islamabad. But witch hunting is passé in New England and Scotland and the Germanies, and nobody really expects Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama to start playing nuclear chicken like it's 1974.

So what happened?"


3.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/obsolete-existential-threats-1.html

Three arguments against the singularity - Charlie Stross

"Short version: Santa Claus doesn't exist.

Long version:

I'm going to take it as read that you've read Vernor Vinge's essay on the coming technological singularity (1993), are familiar with Hans Moravec's concept of mind uploading, and know about Nick Bostrom's Simulation argument. If not, stop right now and read them before you continue with this piece. Otherwise you're missing out on the fertilizer in which the whole field of singularitarian SF, not to mention posthuman thought, is rooted. It's probably a good idea to also be familiar with Extropianism and to have read the posthumanism FAQ, because if you haven't you'll have missed out on the salient social point that posthumanism has a posse.

(In passing, let me add that I am not an extropian, although I've hung out on and participated in their online discussions since the early 1990s. I'm definitely not a libertarian: economic libertarianism is based on the same reductionist view of human beings as rational economic actors as 19th century classical economics — a drastic over-simplification of human behaviour. Like Communism, Libertarianism is a superficially comprehensive theory of human behaviour that is based on flawed axioms and, if acted upon, would result in either failure or a hellishly unpleasant state of post-industrial feudalism.)"


4 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html

Existential Threats - Charles Stross

"Here's another game it's useful to learn how to play if you want to write near-future science fiction: spot the Existential Threat.

An existential threat (for purposes of this thought experiment) is some phenomenon or activity — it may be natural or may be human-contrived — that threatens, in ascending order of threatliness, the survival of (1) technological civilization, (2) the human species itself, (3) life on Earth, or (4) the universe. It may also be qualified by the probability of it happening annually. Obviously, a type 3 event that occurs on average once every ten billion years is nothing to lose sleep over (that's the estimated life expectancy of our planet), while a type 1 event with a probability of 10% per annum is definitely worrying."


4 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/existential-threats.html

Rule 34: Part Three TOYMAKER: The Leith Police Dismisseth Us - Charles Stross

"The fab's still warm from that bampot Malc's job, so you start by stuffing fresh cans of feedstock up its arse—this job's a hybrid, multiple plastics in the same structure and a skeleton made using the special brew that's been doing the rounds these past couple of months. The work-space is clean, and there's no crap lying around from the last run, which is good, and it's big enough that if you twist the model just so, you can make it in one run.

So you cable your laptop up to the fab, stick your special dongle in its side, swipe your thumb print across it for access, and log in to Evil Santa's workshop to download the templates for a bad night out in toytown."


4 out of 5


http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-part-three.html

Rule 34: Part Two Chapter 2: ANWAR: Job Interview - Charles Stross

"The Gnome chuckles, a quiet hiccuping noise like a vomiting cat. "I take your point." He necks another mouthful of beer. "And is business good?"

"Don't be daft, Adam." You switch off the pad. "I've only been out two months; my mobie's running six different kinds of Polis spyware, and I can't even surf for porn without official permission. What do you think business is like?""


3.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-part-two.html

Rule 34 1. LIZ: Red Pill Blue Pill - Charles Stross

"And so you have to drag yourself away from your office for eight hours a month to supervise the kicking of litter-lout ass from the air-conditioned comfort of a control room on the third floor of Fettes Avenue Police HQ. It could be worse: At least they don't expect you to pound the pavement in person. Except Jason McDougall has called you out to do some rare on-site supervision on—

A two-wetsuit job.

Back in the naughty noughties a fifty-one-year-old Baptist minister was found dead in his Alabama home wearing not one but two wet suits and sundry bits of exotic rubber underwear, with a dildo up his arse. (The cover-up of the doubly-covered-up deceased finally fell before a Freedom of Information Act request.)"


3.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-2.html

Rule 34 Covert Artwork - Charles Stross

Sans textual tarnishing.




4 out of 5

Atrocity Archives Bad Moon - Leighton Johns

3.5 out of 5

Antibodies - Giacomo Pueroni

"Art for the short story "Antibodies" by Charles Stross, in the magazine Robot 52 (2007)"

4 out of 5

Lord Vanek - Centrilium

3.5 out of 5

Helplessly Dominant - Charles Stross

"We humans are social hominids, a branch of the broader family of primates that includes the great apes. We appear to have evolved in extended family groups similar to other primate troupes; with language and, later, writing we developed the ability to signal our social context within much larger groups."


3.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/03/helplessly-dominant.html

Five year retrospective - Charles Stross

"Five years ago I more or less finished writing "Halting State", although it wasn't published until mid-2007. Around that time, MMOs were getting an increasing amount of interest, and a startup forum/social site called GuildCafe commissioned me to write an article about the next 25 years.

While I linked to it from my blog, the original article stayed on GuildCafe's site, but GuildCafe have apparently been through some changes, and the original article has succumbed to link rot.

So I'm reprinting it below. And my question for you is, what' did I get wrong in 2007?
"


4.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/

Sir Fred Goodwin is a wanker - Charles Stross

"Sir Fred "Banker" Goodwin is the former chief executive of a certain financial institution, bailed out by the British government at enormous expense a while ago: consequently he's the recipient of a more-than-abstract amount of money that I paid in tax. He also appears to be somewhat litigious, to the point of having taken out a super-injunction banning news media from describing him as the entity for which the collective noun is a wunch. I would be unaware of the existence of this super-injunction or gagging order if it hadn't been mentioned in Parliament, under Parliamentary Privilege: there's a rather profound freedom of speech issue lurking here, insofar as it appears to be possible for any random scumbag in the UK to pre-emptively ban all news media from describing him as a scumbag. "


5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/03/wanker.html

Future Tense: Future Sci-Fi - Antony Funnell

"Antony Funnell: Dr Kevin Grazier, an interplanetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a former science adviser for the TV series Battlestar Galactica and also a certified science fiction nut. No offence of course.

Also in today's program, Annalee Newitz from the sci-fi blog i09 and British science fiction writer, Charlie Stross.

Now we'd love to hear from you. What do you think? How much real influence do you believe science fiction still has? Comment on our blog or send us an email: just go to the Future Tense website or simply search the words ABC and Future Tense."


4 out of 5

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2011/3092658.htm