Oh, and in case anyone out there is a fan of David Wingrove's Chinese SF epic Chung Kuo, it's being rereleased as a 20-volume set, complete with new prequels and a rewritten conclusion.

Personally, I'm going to hold out for that romantic trilogy set against a three-milennia-long temporal war fought between Germany and Russia he's got stashed in a desk drawer somewhere.

I think the Singularity is today's postcyberpunk SF what widespread FTL travel was to classic-era space opera: a comforting fantasy that's often a necessary assumption of the genre but which doesn't actually work if you look at it even moderately critically.

You may be right about that. Sometimes I even wonder if AI is actually possible or if it's just one of those things that lies far enough beyond the upper limits of physics, engineering expertise, and simple financial cost that we'll never crack it, sort of like regular manned space travel.

I think the Singularity is today's postcyberpunk SF what widespread FTL travel was to classic-era space opera: a comforting fantasy that's often a necessary assumption of the genre but which doesn't actually work if you look at it even moderately critically.

You know, this discussion reminds me of an essay I read in a book of Marxist SF criticism on Charles Stross's Accelerando. The writer's contention was that in the post-Singularity world Stross depicts, the AIs basically recreate contemporary capitalism in a form so high-speed and complex that even augmented humans can only participate as commodities. After about 20,000-odd years, the remnants of mankind are exiled to a backwater brown dwarf, while the AIs basically converted the solar system into computronium and traded themselves to destruction.

Personally, I don't think the singularity is ever going to happen. Hell, I'm still waiting for world socialism.

Well, Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom is pretty explicitly transhumanist - you can trace a hell of a lot of ideas in it back to Kurzweil and other transhumanist thinkers and there are several ideas that are new in it which have subsequently seen discussion in transhumanist circles, like the merits of a reputation-based currency in a post-scarcity economy. And he was considered to be an important enough contributor to the subject to be brought in to speak at the first Singularity Summit back in 2006.

I admit that I don't follow him or transhumanism closely enough to know whether they've parted ways more recently, but he gave a lot of space to transhumanism in his work and was embraced heartily by other transhumanists.

No see, I wasn't aware Doctorow was a transhumanist at all; if he is, he's done a fantastic job of concealing the fact when writing FTW (since his portrayal of kids in China and India struck me as unusually nuanced--they aren't privileged and they're even beaten brutally, for ex, but suffering/filth/squalor isn't the sum and total of their existences), and concealing his absolute disregard for anyone less wealthy and less privileged than himself, so your remark came to me as a surprise.

I obviously wasn't suggesting that everywhere that isn't in a developed nation is horrendous, or even that there isn't filth or squalor in developed nations. But transhumanism has always come across to me as a philosophy espoused by comparatively privileged people anticipating their privilege increasing exponentially along with their computing power.

I'm just sceptical about the idea that the benefits of the Singularity won't be disproportionately snaffled up by privileged folks, just like the benefits of every other major growth in economic prosperity or technological understanding hasn't been disproportionately beneficial to the privileged.

Kyra: Ye Gods.

I see a business opportunity here...Ethically Farmed Wowgold, anyone?

Huh. I was under the impression, reading For the Win, that Doctorow's one of the select few writers of privilege who are able to write about places "less wealthy and pleasant" with some modicum of decency and respect. I don't know about anyone else, but as someone who lives in a developing nation the grinding insistence of first-world writers that everything in my part of the world is HORRIBLE FILTHY SQUALOR OH GOD OH GOD OH GODDDD is really bloody fucking annoying.

As the article says, it's very surreal. I wonder what Cory Doctorow thinks of all this.

Probably something insufferably transhumanist, if he says anything at all.

Then again transhumanists tend not to think a lot about parts of the world that are less wealthy and pleasant than the ones they live in, normally because the implications of the Singularity (twitch, twitch) for those portions of the world where electricity is a luxury are, if you even start thinking about them, kind of dreadful.

I'm LOLing so hard. The Prime Minister of Poland gave Obama an iPad and... a collector's edition of The Witcher 2. You know, with the bust of Geralt and everything.

Kyra: Ye Gods.

Yikes, that must suck.

As the article says, it's very surreal. I wonder what Cory Doctorow thinks of all this.

Well, if the rapture really does come in October, we can at least be comforted by the fact that civilisation had already reached a peak which it would be unlikely ever to surpass.

Ye Gods.

Yes, I feel someone should apologise for Skins :P

I'm giggling over The Worst Video Game Voices + Bad Face Acting.

Oh god, Kyra, they made you watch MTV Skins?? I apologize on behalf of my nation AND Canada.

Why is Sonia waving a pickaxe at me?

"it's quite difficult to go into an established group who are used to work together and have their own natural chemistry"

You never can tell what to expect. I stumbled into a group who fed me Cappuvino :-)

It is muchly good! Though I think you were right that it goes on a bit too long (i.e. "they fight, part ways, reunite" cycles). Still love it, though.

She likes it! I’m glad you like it! :-)

(I’ve been doing a little rereading on my own — I started reading it when it was a monthly thing, and so I’m a little surprised this time around at how quickly they got to the shooty-fighty bits.)

Well, they were awfully nice to me and I had lots of fun but it's quite difficult to go into an established group who are used to work together and have their own natural chemistry. And one of the major disadvantages of not being in control of the editing is that you no longer have opportunity to squander many hours of your life making yourself sound awesome. Ahem. Also editing is one of those skills I'm learning very much on the job, by trial and error. Mainly error.

on the off-chance you don't get enough of me babbling here you can hear me babbling somewhere else.

Yay! Ferretbrain podcasts are some of the funniest stuff around, and I'm always so thrilled when there's new material up to listen to.

It'll also be kind of interesting to see how one of the Ferretcrew does when separated from their usual pack and when the podcast editing is not in Kyra's masterful hands.

Oh, and going back a bit: great Takei video, Kyra - I probably never would've known about it without you. Thanks.

And still further:

Rami: Apparently we have received positive comments from Melina Marchetta! Thank you Guy, apparently your review was well received!

Oh. Oh wow. That's brilliant. Congratulations, Guy.

This also probably sounds churlish but I get a little impatient with male authors pulling the "I can do female characters who aren't completely made of fail, can I haz another cookie?" over and over again.

No way, not churlish at all. It's like golly wow you treat female characters like they're people--okay fictional people--instead of T&A bait, congratulations for being a decent human being, did you expect a medal/a magical auto-pass whenever you write women again forever after? I'm looking into Echo but the synopsis doesn't strike me as particularly interesting either.

Still, SiP does have really great female characters. Who have bodies that don't fit pop-media standards but who are still gorgeous/have characters who find them gorgeous and attractive. Whoa.

Oh God, I have some shameless self promoting to do. Eeek! Somehow, fuck knows how, I had the astonishing honour to be invited onto a podcast not my own - which was the fabulous Read it and Weep, which I first discovered when they were reading and weeping over City of Whatever. Anyway, on the off-chance you don't get enough of me babbling here you can hear me babbling somewhere else.

Yes, that's it exactly. And that was true right to the end. Like he casually threatens to cut Dany's unborn child out of her womb, and then when Drogo is all "we will give you a crown" and suddenly Viserys is all smiles, and he says something like: "that's all I wanted" as if he hadn't just been threatening to murder his sister and her child.

Re, SIP - yayness! I have the first volume of Echo, which I think is meant to be his take on a "real" female superhero, but for some reason it didn't grab me as much. This also probably sounds churlish but I get a little impatient with male authors pulling the "I can do female characters who aren't completely made of fail, can I haz another cookie?" over and over again. It's a bit like Whedon Syndrome - Buffy worked because he wasn't really wanking his feminist dick but as soon as he decided he was A Dude Who Got Women it all went sooooo wrong. I'm not saying Moore is doing the same thing but I am slightly concerned.