Minecraft users have been building a 1:1 replica of Earth to preserve a record of our planet and our current civilisation in event of its destruction (and goodness knows there are enough options for total world-ending destruction available these days) for some time now. As a sub-plot to that grand plan, Reporters Without Borders is … Continue reading The Uncensored New Library of Alexandra
Category: Science and Technology
Chimera : A tail of mice and men
Human-animal hybrids are now a reality (and have been for some years now). Mutants are no longer the subject of science fiction, they are now flesh and blood beings. For example: In China, human-monkey chimeras have been designed and born. (Planet of the Apes, anyone?) Japan has approved human-rat hybrid trials. (Ratman is somehow less exiting … Continue reading Chimera : A tail of mice and men
Are we nearing the end of the age of literacy?
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” ~ George R.R. Martin As we move from the text and screen web to the voice and spacial web (and possibly even into the age of a fully connected human Brainternet), we move one step closer to … Continue reading Are we nearing the end of the age of literacy?
Foundation
The Foundation trilogy by grandfather of futurism and former RAND corporation forefather, Isaac Asimov is a masterclass in playing the long game. If you want to understand foresight and strategy, you could do worse than to "waste" a weekend on this highly entertaining work of science fiction; almost like the Art of War, for nerds. … Continue reading Foundation
Generation Alpha, IQ, and the Bifurcation of Everything
Here's another question to throw into the heated (understatement of the year) debates around 1) the legality of abortion and 2) the validity of IQ scores. Ethical question: Should we encourage women to abort their low-IQ embryos? Because now we can test for that in utero. How we answer that question, as individuals, as cultures, … Continue reading Generation Alpha, IQ, and the Bifurcation of Everything
Facial Justice
Facial Justice by LP Hartley is not a good book. In fact, I would say it is a pretty terrible book. Bad plot, bad characters, badly written. Yet, I am still featuring it here because the book's big idea is brilliant. Facial Justice imagines a not too distant future where women are forced to have … Continue reading Facial Justice
Atomised
Michel Houellebecq is clearly a polymath. In Atomised (a science fiction novel very cleverly disguised as serious prize-winning literary fiction) he demonstrates his wide ranging knowledge and deep understanding of subjects ranging from philosophy to physics, and from biology to psychology, to brilliant effect. The book reveals the author's uniquely considered philosophy of history. He illustrates through his … Continue reading Atomised
Death of the Gods
"Our opinions and beliefs, what we hold to be true and what we think is right and wrong have all become strategic objectives... Each of us has been brought - face-to-face - to a new front line." The (very readable) Death of the Gods by Carl Miller is a whirlwind overview of the biggest Big … Continue reading Death of the Gods
Scale
"The pseudoscience of planning seems almost neurotic in its determination to imitate emphatic failure and ignore empire success." - The Life and Death of American Cities Scale by Geoffrey West may not be the easiest read (it has a highly academic style, complete with lots of highly academic jabs at different academic fields - … Continue reading Scale
We
"Those two, in paradise were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no alternative." - We I'm really enjoying retro-science fiction at the moment. The ideas imagined in science fiction of years past planted seeds in more practical minds who went on to shape the future that we live in … Continue reading We