2022-03-14

[public] 504K views, 84.4K likes, dislikes audio only

Tom Scott

I can't make science fiction any more. So, to get the ideas I have out of my head, I went to a Standard BBC Quarry, and put all of them one video. Pull down the description for a list of the books that inspired these!

FICTION RECOMMENDATIONS, all FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE:

ACCELERANDO by Charles Stross (2010): novel created from short stories. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html

Arguably the peak of late-noughties singularity fiction, a fad for the "rapture of the nerds" that's mostly passed now. It's still worth a read, even if its early sections are already feeling a little dated:

BIT PLAYERS by Greg Egan (2014): short story. https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/winter_2014/bit_players_by_greg_egan

Part one of a trilogy that continues in 3-Adica and Instantiation, available in this short story collection: https://amzn.to/3tLn1dO [that's an Amazon affiliate link]

EVERYONE IN SILICO by Jim Munroe (2004): novel. https://jimmunroe.net/writing/free_ebook_released.html

A book from the peak era of Adbusters, talking about corporate-sponsored mind-uploading, the author tried to invoice a load of brands for the entirely-uninvited "product placement".

LENA by qntm (2021): short story. https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

Terrifying Wikipedia article from the future. And while it's technically about uploading, it's also not about uploading: https://qntm.org/uploading

REFERENCED IN THE VIDEO BUT I HAVEN'T READ YET:

THE AGE OF EM by Robin Hanson (2016) https://amzn.to/36eqGJl [affiliate link]

BBC Micro-style on-screen counter thanks to the Octagon Simulator from Graeme Cole: https://www.greem.co.uk/octagonsimulator/

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