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Sci-Fi Fiat
I recently read Michael Z. Williamson’s The Weapon, which I discovered after finishing is actually the second book in a series of libertarian military science fiction stories. It had some very interesting elements but was overall fairly typical for that genre, and one thing that the author discussed was the economics of the world that — read more
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The Philosophy of Fictional Apocalypse Survivors
I am quite fond of apocalyptic fiction, which are works that include the end of the world as a key element. There are lots of these, and they range in severity and details. In some ways, it is one of the classic topics of science fiction. Robert Heinlein covered the topic in his novel, Farnham’s — read more
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US and Soviet Research in ESP, Psychic Powers, and Psychotronics
I, personally, do not believe in psychic powers. Although there have been a few odd studies that seemed to show evidence of telepathy or ESP, there is no serious evidence that people are able to read each other’s minds, send their thoughts, look at far-away phenomena, or control the actions of others. Except in the — read more
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Stupid Advertising
Have you ever thought about ad space? We’re advertised to all the time. It feels sort of inescapable. But I think it could go further. Recently, I logged into a WiFi network in a friend’s apartment that was provided by the building. The password to the WiFi was the name of the internet service provider. — read more
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The Hammer(s) of Justice
Recently, I was driving through southern Indiana, and I saw a fairly bewildering sign. Unfortunately, since I was driving, I was not able to get a photo of it, but it was similar to this one: It was not that exceptional. Personal injury lawyers advertise on billboards all the time. Darryl Isaacs, the lawyer in — read more
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The Past’s Future
I recently read The Gernsback Continuum by William Gibson, which tells the tale of a photographer whose work documenting the utopian streamline moderne architecture of the American Southwest lead him to hallucinate visions of the future as imagined from the 30s: shiny chrome spires, people in togas, and strange fascistic overtones to it all. The — read more
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Collapse Stories: High-Rise, Aniara, Flood
I recently read High-Rise by J.G. Ballard, which is a completely deranged novel. It’s like staring into a black hole: dark, frightening, and hypnotic. The book also reminded me of a few other stories, which I believe can be loosely organized into a new genre: collapse stories. High-Rise is about, as the title would suggest, — read more
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The Three Hundred and Fifty Octillion Names of God
This year, dozens of companies have pivoted from cryptocurrency mining to providing AI datacenters. These groups, once focused on extracting digital currency using warehouses full of advanced computer hardware, have found themselves unsustainable and are looking to redirect their resources towards artificial intelligence. They believe, like many others, that AI will grow explosively, and indefinitely, — read more
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Semiotics and Sapience
Recently, I read a paper by the Russian semiotician Ivan Fomin (available here) which attempts to deal with some of the issues in the somewhat old-fashioned discipline of memetics. I think that this understanding of memetics might be an interesting way to understand sapience, the idea of what makes a creature intelligent and able to — read more
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J. E. Landau 