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Sneak Preview Of Vernor Vinge's Next Book
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:26 AM
from the deep-thinkin' dept.
from the deep-thinkin' dept.
orac2 writes "The current issue of IEEE Spectrum Magazine is running a special report titled Sensor Nation, about the technology and social issues involved with the rising tide of ubiquitous surveillance and analysis. One of the articles is a short story by Vernor Vinge about what kind of future we could end up living in, titled Synthetic Serendipity. The story is actually adapted from the book Vinge is currently working on, called Rainbows End (and for the grammar nazis, that's right, there's no apostrophe at the end of 'Rainbows.') ObPlug: I'll be talking at The 5th HOPE in New York on Saturday at 4pm in Area B, and I'll bring along a few issues for any interested slashdotters."
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Rainbows End (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rainbows End (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rainbows End (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not? seemed like pretty standard stuff to be, some of your usual boiler plate, no big deal.
Who Vernor Vinge is (Score:5, Informative)
Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm very much looking forward to the new novel.
And by the way for those interested in security issues in sensor networks, see the work by Adrian Perrig [cmu.edu], he's got a book and a number of papers on the topic.
Re:Amazing (Score:2, Informative)
And now we know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Step one: Everything described in parent.
Step two: Neural interfaces, getting around all of those pesky "physical" operations (finger waving, eyeball cues, etc). One can participate in society completely as a "ghost," without lifting a single finger.
Step three: Network the neural interfaces. "Shared brainstorming" will be considered the fast-track method of advancing science and technology.
Step four: Reassign the "physical substrate" to menial tasks. If I can participate fully in society WITH MY MIND, why not rent out my body to work in the factories or operate the machinery? It's not like I actually need my body for anything else - might as well let it be a "drone."
Step five: Shared neural experience of human society slowly breaks down the boundaries between one human and another; a "hive mind" emerges.
Resistance is futile.
Parent
Re:And now we know... (Score:2)
step six: ???
step seven: PROFIT!!!
When were the Ferengi assimilated? :-)
Re:And now we know... (Score:3, Funny)
Mediated Reality Requires No Hardware (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, anyone can turn off their enhancements and see the plain old reality, but most people don't bother most of the time because things are ugly that way.
There's less need for optical sensor feeds to change reality than you might think.
In my experience, most people have moved the alteration of perception part back deeper into their brains.
They already live in a mediated reality here and now in 2004.
Parent
I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred. (Score:5, Insightful)
And you know what? I don't care. Because I've made a choice to deal with this stuff. If you don't want to live with modern society's "privacy invasion", then don't bitch that you can't take part in all the luxuries and services it provides for you. Don't own a house. Don't own a car. Don't have a credit card. You know there are millions of people living in America who are completely in the Black, off the radar, invisible. I know people who call them "illegals" but they're just good people, most of them Mexican, making a decent living. If privacy is important to you, get off your god damned yuppie ass, stop bitching, and go get a real education from someone who actually knows something about privacy: the "illegals" who mop your shit off the linoleum floor. You want to know what their "social security number" is? 123-Fuck-You-Charlie-Bravo.
You can give it all up, check out of the system, dissapear. If you have balls. On the other hand, if you're a coward and you want your cake: the house, the car, the job, the credit rating, the phone number and static IP address - but you don't want to accept the "privacy invasion" that comes part and parcel with modern society - do us all a favor and drink up a nice cup of Shut The Fuck Up.
Re:I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred. (Score:2)
Re:I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred. (Score:3, Funny)
They saw that? *covers privates*
Taking the easy way out, or... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind a credit card company to keep track of my purchases, or my car ownership being registered in some government database. What I do mind is for corporations and governments to do god knows what with that data, and use it for purposes other than the ones it was collected for. One way to ensure this is to accept the system and cop out, hide, disappear like you suggest. Another way is to try and change the system, making sure that there are proper laws to govern what can be done with your data, and to make sure that the government collects only the data it needs to do its job. Our country (the Netherlands) has very strict rules about this: you can ask any company to disclose what data they have stored about you, and the data is not allowed to be used for anything other than its stated purpose. Sure... it's misused sometimes, but at least you'll have a nice legal stick to beat them with if you catch them. Not foolproof, but good enough if you want the nice house, car and other luxuries of our modern society.
People 'bitch and moan', as you call it because they want the system changed, rather than just give up.
Parent
Re:I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred. (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as this is being adhered to, I'm cool with it.
Re:I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred. (Score:3, Informative)
"illegal Mexicans? I wish" (Score:4, Interesting)
If only they were "illegals" where I live. Unfortunatly, here, they are red-neck nuts. Check it out: Freedom County [exordia.net]. These people are the tin-foil hat and automatic weapon crowd.
Parent
Re:I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred. (Score:4, Insightful)
And I for one am grateful for the people who are trying to deflect the steam engine before it runs right off the rails.
Parent
Re:I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Let's say that happens. Everyone who dislikes the system drops out. Then the only people left in the system are those who either A) want to spy on and/or control others, B) don't mind being spyed on or controlled, or C) are unaware.
So what happens? The system becomes stronger, better able to control it's populace. But now there's this annoying group of "off the grid" people. What does the system do? What it's made to do, of course, it tries to control them! But now, having been left to perfect it's methods of control (remember, all of the rebels left) it's developed some rather effective ways to control and track a populace. There's not much those poor lotechs can do to stop it. Welcome to the new low cost labor force, boys!
The moral of the story? You can never hide from the world. It will always intrude on you. And if you ignore a problem it will only become worse.
Parent
Re:"If you have the balls" (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:"If you have the balls" (Score:2)
Re:"If you have the balls" (Score:3, Insightful)
You can call me "un-american", whatever the hell that means, all you like. Especially since "America" is composed of quite a few different countries...
Personally, I am not socialist. I am not marxist, communist, capitalist, anarchist or most other 'ists'. I happen to believe that the government is a form of organization designed (deliberately) to protect our food, our land, our posessions, our lives, and our values. If it does these things for a majority
We haven't had real privacy for a while... (Score:5, Interesting)
The article suggests that this information will be available in the future and that we all will be willing to absolutely forgo anonymity to have information about anything at any given time. I do have to admit that I forsee one small problem here: if the government, your boss, your neighbor, know what you are reading through, then you will be more selective about what you study, and thus, it really isn't free access to information.
It's like the government knowing what you are checking out of the library. It makes you think again about trying to get a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook, you know, even if you feel that you have the right to read it. Even so, as I said, we no longer have privacy, so if we can end our governments' monopoly on privacy, then I believe that we will be better off for it.
Re:We haven't had real privacy for a while... (Score:2)
Not exactly. The society will have to change, to adapt to the spread of surveillance and sousveillance technologies. In the future world without anonymity we will have to become much more tolerant, we will have to accept that fact that people read about weird shit, talk about weird shit, think about weird shit and sometimes do weird shit. Currently, even when we open our eyes to this, we tell it's not our business. In the future we will have to realise that i
Re:We haven't had real privacy for a while... (Score:3, Insightful)
Four words: Not Going To Happen.
There has always been and will always be people who think that "my way is the only right way", "what I don't think is right is sinful" or "anyone who does not believe/behave/talk the same way as me is Evil and Should Be Re-educated Or Killed". Intolerance is part of how human societies operate, it isn't
Re:We haven't had real privacy for a while... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We haven't had real privacy for a while... (Score:3, Interesting)
What planet are you referring to? It can't be the same Earth I grew up on.
Those dumb, panicky, dangerous animals are your friends and neighbors, and they will never be as tolerant as you wish. American society oscillates between tolerance and puritanism, but while the amplitude of the oscillation has grown, the centerline hasn't s
It's not the grammar nazi you should worry about. (Score:4, Funny)
We trust you have learned your lesson this time, no? Just be grateful that the "Lose, not Loose" guy is out of town.
Re:It's not the grammar nazi you should worry abou (Score:2)
hey... (Score:2, Funny)
Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read a lot of good sci-fi writers, but so few are as good at character development AND hard core science fiction writing.
If Vinge didn't spend so much time teaching, he'd probably have time to write more novels.
Anyone have some suggestions of writers who come close to Vinge for great sci-fi? (I've already read most of Gibson, Stephenson, Simmons, Bear, Sagan, Haldeman)
ILL Clinton
The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers [illclan.com]
Re:Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:2)
Re:Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:5, Informative)
Alastair Reynolds.
Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap.
All of them good, hard sci-fi. Reynolds is an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency, and so you get some reasonable science behind the ideas a lot of the time. (Although some of it is extremely hypothetical stuff.)
He's my absolute favourite science fiction author and I can't recommend him enough. I read "A Fire Upon the Deep" for the first time about a week ago and liked it, but Alastair Reynolds completely amazed me.
Read them. Trust me.
Parent
Alastair Reynolds is terrible (Score:3, Informative)
His vision of technology is what is interesting in his books but that's it.
Re:Alastair Reynolds is terrible (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet ... his technology/science is first rate, as already mentioned. But more than that, I find his vision of future history and culture to be quite compelling. And I would disagree that he has pacing problems, I find them to be very tightly plotted and exciting to read. And, as John Clute said [scifi.com] about Revelation Space, he is good at evoking "the thrilled melancholy of the abyss" which I would agree is part of the appeal of space opera.
All in all though, having just read Absolution Gap I am disappointed that Reynolds hasn't overcome these sorts of problems after four novels. Perhaps he is just better at the short forms of fiction (Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days was excellent). His next novel is not tied to his previous ones, and he has also taken the plunge into writing full-time, so maybe he will take this opportunity to became the great writer that he easily could be.
Oh, and my other suggestions for where to go after Vinge: Greg Egan, Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, Gregory Benford (especially the Galactic Center books), David Brin (Uplift).
Parent
Re:Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:2)
Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man and Tiger, Tiger (aka The Stars My Destination). Classic sci-fi from a genuine writer.
Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. Deep, interesting and beatufully written. Not what you expect from a book whose plot summary (a Jesuit mission to the first alien civilization discovered via SETI) sounds, um, odd. The best desc
Re:Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Greg Egan [netspace.net.au] is one of my absolute favourites (and I have read and like all the authors you list).
Character development is perhaps not his best side, but he cannot be beaten ideas-wise. If you're into SF that focuses on the logical implications of AI and VR technologies taken to the extreme, this guy is the best. I particularly recommend _Permutation City_ and _Diaspora_.
Parent
Re:Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:2)
Re:Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:2)
Re:Can you say, "augmented reality?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Grammar nazi (Score:5, Funny)
. . . called Rainbows End (and for the grammar nazis, that's right, there's no apostrophe at the end of 'Rainbows.')
That should be "Nazi", not "nazi".
Sincerely,
A capitalization Nazi.
Re:Grammar nazi (Score:4, Funny)
Nah, the term went generic and they lost that trademark. It's like "kleenex" and "xerox".
(More sadly, perhaps this isn't so far from the truth.)
Parent
"If Everybody..." (Score:5, Interesting)
decent, then it could work.
But if only 90% of people are like that, then "total information" could make your life annoying
as heck, one of the reasons why "total sharing" (communism) always fails so abysmally.
Which means that such a system has to find and harshly punish (reform, exile, or kill) anyone who
doesn't cooperate (assuming the enforcers are not corrupt), with near 100% effectiveness (i.e,
become totalitarian).
Even if you do that, natural inclinations are for the corrupt to seek power, and become the enforcers.
Any large-scale society needs significant privacy (even if not officially protected) simply so that
people can live near each other without constantly fighting. Small, relatively isolated communities
can do without much privacy because then can effectively exile or control the 10% or whatever
that don't fit in.
Ultimately we'll probably settle in at some level of surveillance that is survivable (I hope), with
more or less in various communities and individual or community measures to have some control (like
"community associations" that don't allow surveillance (or limit it), or EMP grenades for
that matter).
Unless of course someone develops really effective subliminal or broadcast mind control, in which
case it's pretty much over (for practical purposes). The advantage to that being that you
won't care if you have privacy (or anything else).
technological singularity (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:technological singularity (Score:5, Insightful)
Just for fun I've been known to argue that this has already happened.
We're still adapting to the effects of a good information network. Remember what happened when Gorbachev legalized information flow in the old Soviet Union? The largest empire in human history evaporated like a bad dream. Nobody(*) predicted that. Now we have Google. What's coming next?
(*) Almost nobody. Poul Anderson had a story in 1953 called "The Last Deliverer" in which a far-future character asked whatever happened to the Communists. The answer was something like "They didn't understand the implications of the new technology. They weren't so much overthrown as everyone started ignoring them".
Parent
Re:technological singularity (Score:3, Funny)
Sensors and Sensibility (Score:3, Interesting)
This seems very consistent with current politics, where Presidents (and their VPs) testify before committees unable to take notes, and public documents are supressed, then released only for in-person public review, barring recording. Has amnesia become the required state for modern people? Is Anderson/Enron record shredding the default in the info age? Who's looking at you, kid? And will you ever remember that night on Bourbon Street until the video appears on BitTorrent during your Congressional campaign?
grammar nazis? (Score:3, Interesting)
I assume this would be correct if the "end" in question pertained to the termination of multiple rainbows (i.e. they went away) and in fact seems to imply that all rainbows are ending. More likely it is a play on the phrase "end of the rainbow", a mythical place where a pot of gold can be located. Using the plural of rainbow would imply that this single place is in fact common to all rainbows everywhere, in which case there must be one huge pot of gold there. How seemingly disconnected rainbows all terminate at a single place is left as an excercise for the reader. Perhaps they have more than 3 dimensions?
yeah, right; everybody is doing it... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a ridiculous statement. If they feel so comfortable, why don't they place webcams in their bedroom and toilets? After all, everyone is doing it...
And a small price? Has it ever accured to those people that the abuse is gigantic, and that there is a good reason to regard privacy as a right? If they really think no1 has anything to fear if our personal data is for grabs, they are idiotic ninkenpoops. Just imagine what would happen, say, if a medical insurance-compagny would know you have some diseaese or gentic make-up that makes you sensitive and have a high risk for cancer or something? How do you think they will react? "We know you're a high-risk case, but that doesn't matter for us and we'll grant you the same as everyone else, because everyone is doing it?"
Apart from the obvious economic issues for an individual, there are also the sociological ones. Has it ever occured to them that people don't WANT that others know about something, whether they do it or not? Does a woman want it to be known that she had an abortion? Does a person automatically wants his sex-life (or lack thereof)to be known to all, even if he knows others are doing it? Do they honestly believe that I (and I'm guessing Im' not the only one) would want my personal feelings and emotions be known, because everyone is sharing them?
Well, I have seen Springer and Opera a few times, and it NEVER made me want to do the same, on the contrary.
No, it does not follow that, because 'all do it', you should be happy with 'life as an eternal peepshow'. And what's more, anyone with a grasp of human nature would realise that will never come. It's like saying 'if everyone were peacefull (or rational, or whatever), the world would be a better place'. Even if true, it's a nonsensical statement in any practical sense. Human nature involves good and evil, as well as the drive for meddling in someone elses' business and wanting to keep things private.
While they maybe right in the development of future privacy-invading technologies, they make the same error many 'futurologists' do; they extrapolate from the current conditions, and think they can predict what is going to happen. What folly.
If history teaches us anything, it's that it's comprised of forces and counter-forces: if at one time it swings to much in one direction, you can be sure there will be a counter-reaction. If privacy is being abused en masse, it will not lead to a broad acceptance of that abuse, but rather to a counter-reaction.
And I also do not think there is some sort of causal relationship between 'having unrestricted acces to the internet' and privacy abuse. You can have acces to data, yet remain anonymous, as is proven even today on the internet, let alone with systems as Freenet. As long as you are and remain anonymous (or at least pseudonymous), one can not deduce your rl where-abouts and make your private dealings public.
Re:Vernor WHO? (Score:3, Informative)