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baloonworldWhat I want to write is a story in the general case, but the only thing I can think of thats generic enough for that to work is porn, and possibly oolong's LARP reports, one of which I don't want to write and the other of which already has a definitive style. So here's some postsingularity scifi in the second person.
Inspired by Charles Stross, of course.
Its weird for you to sense so little; just outlines, updating slowly.
You find it disorienting to receive so little information; and an appreciable lag time is virtually unheard of, even for data traveling from the far side of the noosphere, and yet now even your own sensorium is cut down to ten frames a second, and those reduced to outlines. It's a bizarre experience, but you are an explorer, in some senses the first in a decade, and the AIs insisted that you run in safe mode. Filtered like this you could walk down NeoOxford street and not experience a single advert, runaway replicator or other memeic hazard. The noosphere itself is gone from your consciousness, leaving you more bereft than the loss of a limb; the AIs also insisted that you run in unheard-of physical isolation from the main network.
You step across the portal into the unknown and see dull uninspiring outlines, updating once every 0.1 seconds. Your Exocortex beeps politely and tells you that it has detected fifteen separate attempts to hack your nervous system on a neural level, but that it was running checksums and that reverting the original impulses was well within the bounds of the possible.
A lower level alert pops open to show you that the simulated flatlines recieving unfiltered visual, aural, nasal and sensual inputs have gone catatonic; Taste is merely salivating while Inner ear appears to think he is flying. Not that there are any flatlines left in the real world, but they would last for half a second.
Some of the outlines move jerkily towards you, and, as they loom closer/larger, your implants draw your attention to the tactical map which gives their position, range and oh my god apparent size, You ask your Exocortex to hurry up with a richer sensorium, but the AIs have locked it down solid and its not going to show you anything until its checked that it doesn't dive its simulations insane.
The good news is that the monstrosity to the left is still a mile away from you and the humanoid looks like it will get here first. The bad news is the the monstrosity is 50 feet high and bipedal, therefore its engineering is beyond what Darwinian selection can do to any earthly stock (you implants ring up probabilities and time frames; you ignore the details). You have a message for the humanoid, or at least, you probably do; the historical data is understandably garbled, and even the AIs need information to work with before they can piece it together.
The humanoid jerks closer to you, and sprouts a text bubble
" 'tis rare we see mortals here, for the border hath lain closed for many a year. Welcome, beauteous lady, to Faerie"
Your implants start running an online Turing analysis, and, somewhat meanly, categorize him as a rudimentary answerphone.
Also inspired by Mike Carey, but I could hardly tell you that up front.
Inspired by Charles Stross, of course.
Its weird for you to sense so little; just outlines, updating slowly.
You find it disorienting to receive so little information; and an appreciable lag time is virtually unheard of, even for data traveling from the far side of the noosphere, and yet now even your own sensorium is cut down to ten frames a second, and those reduced to outlines. It's a bizarre experience, but you are an explorer, in some senses the first in a decade, and the AIs insisted that you run in safe mode. Filtered like this you could walk down NeoOxford street and not experience a single advert, runaway replicator or other memeic hazard. The noosphere itself is gone from your consciousness, leaving you more bereft than the loss of a limb; the AIs also insisted that you run in unheard-of physical isolation from the main network.
You step across the portal into the unknown and see dull uninspiring outlines, updating once every 0.1 seconds. Your Exocortex beeps politely and tells you that it has detected fifteen separate attempts to hack your nervous system on a neural level, but that it was running checksums and that reverting the original impulses was well within the bounds of the possible.
A lower level alert pops open to show you that the simulated flatlines recieving unfiltered visual, aural, nasal and sensual inputs have gone catatonic; Taste is merely salivating while Inner ear appears to think he is flying. Not that there are any flatlines left in the real world, but they would last for half a second.
Some of the outlines move jerkily towards you, and, as they loom closer/larger, your implants draw your attention to the tactical map which gives their position, range and oh my god apparent size, You ask your Exocortex to hurry up with a richer sensorium, but the AIs have locked it down solid and its not going to show you anything until its checked that it doesn't dive its simulations insane.
The good news is that the monstrosity to the left is still a mile away from you and the humanoid looks like it will get here first. The bad news is the the monstrosity is 50 feet high and bipedal, therefore its engineering is beyond what Darwinian selection can do to any earthly stock (you implants ring up probabilities and time frames; you ignore the details). You have a message for the humanoid, or at least, you probably do; the historical data is understandably garbled, and even the AIs need information to work with before they can piece it together.
The humanoid jerks closer to you, and sprouts a text bubble
" 'tis rare we see mortals here, for the border hath lain closed for many a year. Welcome, beauteous lady, to Faerie"
Your implants start running an online Turing analysis, and, somewhat meanly, categorize him as a rudimentary answerphone.
Also inspired by Mike Carey, but I could hardly tell you that up front.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 10:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 10:57 am (UTC)I'd argue that the singularity is an unecessarilly simplistic approch. The predictablity of the future reduces on a continuious scale, so why should there be a discrete catergorization?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 11:14 am (UTC)I don't want to be post-human. Conjoiners are scary. All I want is a calulator strapped to my head.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 11:42 am (UTC)My assumption is that the universe imposes limitations on the far side of the singularity, so computational power doesn't actully reach infinity, so the asymptote is only an approximation.
How about having an abacus glued to your wrist? that would be cool. And your implants could survive an EMP. Rudimentary Posthumanity is here, and we want our inferior explants.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 11:53 am (UTC)I like your abacus idea. You should see the rudimentary time keeping explant I already have there.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-15 07:52 pm (UTC)articulates my idea that the singularity has happened.