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The Disunity of Identity
Recently, I have become interested in the philosophy of identity. This is probably not especially surprising to long-term readers given that transhumanism is a recurring topic on this blog and in my writing more generally. Now, when I talk about “identity”, you may already be uncertain of what I mean. After all, the term “identity”… — read more
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A Little Relaxation – A Short Story
I decided to buy the machine when my in-laws were visiting. My husband and his father were in a shouting match in the backyard, because I didn’t want them to yell at each other in front of the kids, and my mother-in-law was insisting that I talk to her about my plans for the future.… — read more
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The Akashic Record – A Short Story
Derschmidt’s boss had come in, huffing and puffing and with his face all red, and he glared at Derschmidt like he might glare at a dead insect on a freshly cleaned windshield. Derschmidt, for his part, had no idea what his boss was talking about, when he started yelling about a pallet of water bottles.… — read more
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The Problem with Greg Egan’s “Dust Theory”
I might talk about Greg Egan too much, but he’s had a lot of interesting ideas. Somewhat recently, I read the book Permutation City based on the recommendation of a few acquaintances, and I really enjoyed it, but I think that the book has a fundamental philosophical problem, which I will attempt to explain here.… — read more
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Time Travel Epistemology
I recently rewatched the movie Sphere, which is based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. It is about an expedition to investigate a crashed spacecraft at the bottom of the ocean, which as it turns out is from the future. The people investigating find the titular sphere and some other things happen… — read more
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Post-Internet
What comes after the internet as we know it? It’s almost unimaginable at this point to think that we could see a future without the internet as we know it, but it’s easy to discuss an internet that has evolved to the point of being unrecognizable. Somewhat recently, a family member asked me what I… — read more
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We Are All Transhuman
Transhumanism is, nominally, a pretty fringe ideology. There are a handful of mildly (in)famous transhumanists, including Bryan Johnson, Martine Rothblatt, Zoltan Istvan, and Elon Musk, although Musk’s transhumanist ventures are relatively obscure (Neuralink certainly doesn’t make the same headlines as SpaceX, Tesla, or X nee Twitter). There are a couple of big events that are… — read more
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Slouching Towards Techo-thriller
Recently, I read the novel Seawitch by Alistair MacLean. It was a piece of extruded thriller product from 1977, about a professional terrorist trying to destroy an oil platform owned by the wealthy and disciplined Lord Worth, and it gets pretty ridiculous. Right at the beginning, Worth steals a bunch of military hardware without any… — read more
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Cosmism in Science Fiction
Recently, there has been some discourse about cosmism, both in the space community and outside of it. I listen to a few space-industry podcasts, and Casey Dreier from the Planetary Society is a usual guest on a few of the shows I listen to. One thing that he occasionally brings up is the idea of… — read more
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The Value of Illegibility
Today I finished reading Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, and I enjoyed it a quite a bit. I don’t read much military science fiction, but I’d heard good things about the book from some acquaintances so I figured I’d give it a shot, and it really exceeded my expectations. The book is about the… — read more
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J. E. Landau 