@PaulGrahamRaven@assemblag.es
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PaulGrahamRaven

@PaulGrahamRaven@assemblag.es

Science fiction writer turned tech critic turned STS/critical futures academic turned consulting critical foresight practitioner and worldbuilder-for-hire. Resident in (and aspiring citizen of) Malmö, Sweden.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

PaulGrahamRaven, to random
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I forget who it was that prompted me to sign up for the newsletter known as The Future party, but I guess I should thank whoever it was for giving me a whole list of new things to hate every day.

(I also find it rather telling that Gmail thinks it's spam; after another week or so, I may well concur. The indignities we endure in the name of horizon scanning, eh?)

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@ahmetasabanci Ah, I think you're right, it was Warren, wasn't it?

I think the way I'm reading it now -- literally just scrolling through it in thirty seconds, following no links -- is as deeply as i'll ever want to engage with it. It's a useful way to find out things I would probably otherwise ignore. But the pastiche Massively Online voice of the thing is just awful, as are the shameless ads for bullshit "AI" products that presumably make it a viable business proposition.

Loukas, to random
@Loukas@mastodon.nu avatar

🧵 I have an idea for a science fiction story, but it needs to be based on solid facts about ecosystems.

I'll pin this thread and update it as I find out more.

If you know about climate change, ecology and related systems I'd be happy for your contribution.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas I suspect even the modelling people would shrug at most things that far out. Maybe simplest of all to ask what will definitely not happen, and use that as your scope of decision. :)

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas So sure, you still need to bound it with a certain amount of ecological rigour, but easier to choose a set of circumstances and then ask an ecologist what the implications are; the range of possibilities is too broad at that temporal distance.

(Worth noting, perhaps, that this is one of the reasons that serious earth-focussed sf at these sorts of timescales just isn't being written right now: too many unknowns, of both the known and unknown varieties.)

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas I know these things, and I also know science fiction from the writing side. Happy to help if I can!

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas If you want an example of a book that I think does this really well -- and which also has the merit of just being a brilliant novel, period -- I heartily recommend Claire North's Notes from the Burning World. I often say it's the most solarpunk novel yet printed, despite not calling itself solarpunk, nor being much noted by the solarpunk scene. (Indeed, it seems largely to have slipped past the radar of the sff scene more generally, which is a shame, because it's bloody good.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas Sorry for late response, busy couple of days.

I think my advice would be that, given you're thinking a millennium ahead, you're freed of a lot of the determinism that binds near-future sf. Rather than wondering what's plausible, you can take the old-school worldbuilding route of choosing the circumstances, and having the story do the work of testing their plausibility, if you see what I mean.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas Absolutely! And all models are wrong --- but some models are useful. ;)

Loukas, to random
@Loukas@mastodon.nu avatar

Sweden's right-far-right government, which was elected promising to build up nuclear power very aggressively, has deleted a recent press release where a minister promised to build more, and the role of nuclear in the future energy mix of Sweden is "unclear" says an official.

In other words, even with the best will in the world, the role of nuclear was as a piece of culture war to win an election and no one actually thinks nuclear is feasible. https://mastodon.nu/@intichavezperez/110949502359183925

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas The nuclear thing was always a trial balloon policy; they knew it was impractical from the get-go, but it fitted so nicely with the Cold-War-retro of banging on about NATO as a way of cornering S into making stupid choices, they couldn't resist.

Honestly, my main regret is not taking out a bet on how soon they would start shoving it back under the rug.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas Precis!

gregeganSF, to random
@gregeganSF@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I liked it when the object recognition system at the checkout shrank the default fruit & veg menu to a set of close matches … but the latest iteration wastes time calling staff to confirm that badly-lit snaps of barcoded items really are the same things whose barcode I scanned.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@gregeganSF "Solutions".

PaulGrahamRaven, to random
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ZOMG Lowrider are playing Fuzzfest again this year!

Z. O. M. G.

I don't get like this about bands very much any more. But: LOWRIDER!

L O W R I D E R

L O W R I D E R

L O W R I D E R

https://www.truckfighters.com/festival/

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@ahmetasabanci You're in for a treat! Lowrider are unusually sophisticated for the genre, while still bringing the serious heavy. Nearly two decades between albums; they only reformed a few years back. But the latest one, Refractions, is just staggering.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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I mean, if you know, you know. But if you don't:

https://lowriderofficial.bandcamp.com/track/pipe-rider-2

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@ahmetasabanci

PaulGrahamRaven,
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𝕷𝕺𝖂𝕽𝕴𝕯𝕰𝕽

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@ahmetasabanci My partner has a T-shirt of theirs, and the slogan reads "I don't always listen to Lowrider, but when I do, so do the neighbours."

You know what to do. :)

PaulGrahamRaven, to random
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Holy cats, The Book of Hours dropped yesterday! Now it's all I can do to resist buying it, booting it up, and spending the next month trying to get good at it, to the detriment of work, but also quite possibly of friendships and a stable diet.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1028310/BOOK_OF_HOURS/

(I don't really get excited by games any more, but I adored Cultist Simulator, even though I never got very good at, precisely because I felt that trying to do so would eat my life in a way that mirrors the theme of said game.)

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@ahmetasabanci The description on the Steam page says it's about 40 hours in total, so not the potentially eternal timesink that Cultist Simulator was; more like a couple of Disco Elysiums laid end to end, temporally speaking.

The appeal for me is that it has low hardware requirements; it's been years since I had a desktop rig with decent graphics, so unless it runs on the best laptop-native Nvidia chipset that 2016 could provide, I can't play it. Which rules out 99% of modern games, really.

PaulGrahamRaven, to random
@PaulGrahamRaven@assemblag.es avatar

Any literary or dramaturgical experts on this here federated thingamajig capable of helping me out, here?

I'm looking for the name of the rhetorical or dramaturgical device---assuming there is one?---in which an exagerrated character is clearly meant to act as a sort of avatar for a class or a nationality or a political position (or whatever), rather than being taken as a plausible individual.

It's not allegory, though I guess it's gotta be related to it.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@ahmetasabanci That's not where I was going, but I think it's a fruitful nudge nonetheless; thanks, man!

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

Finished reading: The Centauri Device by M. John Harrison 📚

I first read this when I was about ten years old and I’ve loved Harrison’s work ever since. It showed me that SF could be something different, that spaceships didn’t have to mean macho hero figures. MJH doesn’t like it, but I do. https://micro.blog/books/9780575088054

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@ianbetteridge

Pretty sure that banks was directly influenced by MJH, yes; also know for a fact that MJH was encouraged by Banks (over a dinner at the Groucho, no less) to have a bit more fun with his writing, and that the result was Light.

@Loukas

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@Loukas

Very much so, but the whole New Weird thing was, well, quite a thing. Good interview here with MJH in which some of this stuff comes up:

https://www.bigecho.org/m-john-harrison-interview

@ianbetteridge

PaulGrahamRaven, to random
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Well, after roadtesting it in a one-on-one meeting between two people in places with good stable internet connections, I'm not sure Jitsi is ready to stand as a comparable replacement for Z**m.

Anyone got any other vidconf alternatives worth trying? Bonus points for open-source and/or ethical business practices.

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@yaxu Ah, that looks a little heavier than I need, anyway; looking for something to do small meetings on, rather than host lessons! But thanks for the tip. :)

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@yaxu Oh, it looks great -- but having to rent a separate dedicated server just for a handful of online meetings a month is a bit beyond the budgetary scope of my nascent consulting business. :)

Loukas, to random
@Loukas@mastodon.nu avatar

People: All the different kinds of European and Atlantic integration existing in parallel is so complicated...

People who've studied the Holy Roman Empire: AMATEURS! AMATEURS!

PaulGrahamRaven,
@PaulGrahamRaven@assemblag.es avatar

@Loukas Hah, I was reading a Bruce Sterling story last night ("Pilgrims of the Round World") which is basically Sterling making exactly this point, albeit with much more snark and many more exclamation marks.

ct_bergstrom, to PetBirds

Rooks!

PaulGrahamRaven,
@PaulGrahamRaven@assemblag.es avatar

@ct_bergstrom One of the many delights of living in Malmö is that these guys (and gals) are everywhere. Such characterful creatures.

yaxu, to random
@yaxu@post.lurk.org avatar

We'll have a couple of hours to kill in Vienna before taking the night train to Amsterdam.. Any ideas for things to do, preferably within walking distance of the central train station?

PaulGrahamRaven,
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@kel @yaxu Seconded on the Klimt.

PaulGrahamRaven, to technology
@PaulGrahamRaven@assemblag.es avatar

cultural-fracking-as-a-service (or: an abjuration of “artificial intelligence”)

I'm currently in the nuts-and-bolts phase of booting up my consultancy practice: doing stuff like establishing the business as a legal entity, starting bank accounts, buying domain names and (re)making websites. It's the sort of stuff that makes a heretofore conceptual goal

https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/cultural-fracking-as-a-service-or-an-abjuration-of-artificial-intelligence/

PaulGrahamRaven,
@PaulGrahamRaven@assemblag.es avatar

@ahmetasabanci You mean the firm-starting stuff? It's pretty specific to Sweden, I suspect... though I haven't done it before, so I could be wrong on that front!

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