Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #sciencefiction

Most recents (24)

They say "the Golden Age of #ScienceFiction is 12" - that is, the thing that makes "the good old stuff" so good is its suitability for preteens, and rereading that stuff as an adult (much less continuing to read it in adulthood) is a childish regression.

1/ The Tor Books cover for Ste...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2023/05/27/man…

2/
It's not true.

Or at least, it's not *always* true. Sometimes, the reason a novel sucks us in at 12 is that it is *amazing*, and, moreover, full of layers that make the book get *better* with re-readings, as new layers are revealed by our own maturity.

3/
Read 47 tweets
Last night, I dreamt that my sci-fi images generated with #Midjourney had inspired a series on Netflix... I was quite disappointed when I woke up, hahaha! However, I decided to take it a step further and create a small poster for what could have represented the series... 🧵 Image
Even though it's far from perfect, if this series actually existed, I would surely be one of the first to watch it!

Here are a few of the images I created yesterday that I really love... I hope you'll enjoy them too if, like me, you like science-fiction!

1/20 Image
2/20

All the images come from multiple blends. The blend process takes long (for me) but the result always worth the patience in my opinion. Image
Read 21 tweets
Don’t Curb Your Enthusiasm: Marcus Yallow + 50 Years = Marty Hench?

doctorow.medium.com/dont-curb-your…

#ScienceFiction #YA #LittleBrother #RedTeamBlues The "Marty Hench"...
The dueling fears and aspirations for a better technological future

doctorow.medium.com/dont-curb-your… In the third Marty Hench no...
Read 5 tweets
You know how "#realist" is a synonym for "#asshole?" As in, "I'm not a racist, I'm just a #RaceRealist?" That same "realism" is used to discredit democracy, among self-styled "#LibertarianElitists," who claim that social science proves democracy doesn't work - and can't work.

1/ A lab-coated scientist amid...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/ana…

2/
You've likely encountered elements of this ideology in the wild. Perhaps you've heard about how our #CognitiveBiases make us incapable of deliberating, that "reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments."

3/
Read 48 tweets
This week, @scalzi let me write a guest-editorial for his blog about the themes in my new crime thriller, *Red Team Blues*; specifically, about the ways that spreadsheets embody the power and the pitfalls of #ScienceFiction at its best *and* worst:

whatever.scalzi.com/2023/04/26/the…

1/ A Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet w...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2023/04/29/ged…

2/
Yes, *spreadsheets*. Marty Hench (the protagonist of *Red Team Blues*) is a 67-year-old forensic accountant who specializes in unwinding Silicon Valley financial frauds.

3/
Read 63 tweets
This will be a fight to the depths of his soul.

An unavoidable battle where no one wins.

A brief summary of events leading up to the fight:

(New to this #sciencefiction #podcast?
Listen from the beginning! )
Li Ma’s mansion is under attack by forces from Limnic, a rouge faction of Cereus hellbent on destroying its rival organization by any means.

The leader of the enemy strike force is Silas James, one of the founders of Cereus.

*Reference Ep. 31: Curmudgeon* - Silas shows his true colors.
player.captivate.fm/episode/001714…
Read 5 tweets
(1/4) I asked ChatGPT on 2023-03-23 to write a story about an open-source machine that can travel through space, time, parallel worlds, and the multiverse.
(2/4) I also asked it to dedicate its work to the Public Domain through Creative Commons Public Dedication (CC0 / CCzero), and it did.

Here is the story dedicated to the Public Domain.

See…
1: write.as/yuki/the-open-…

or
(3/4) or

2: fediverse.blog/~/WhenSnowFall…

… for the story.
Read 5 tweets
This week on my #podcast, I read my @Medium column, "#GigWork Is the Opposite of #Steampunk," about the worst-of-all-worlds of #bossware, where an app is your boss, and you live at work because your home and/or car is a branch office of the factory:

doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-th… 1/ A woodcut of a weaver's loft, where a woman works at a hand-
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/lov… 2/
As with so much of my work these days, the column opens with a reference to the #Luddites, and to @bcmerchant's superb, forthcoming history of the Luddite uprisings, "Blood in the Machine":

littlebrown.com/titles/brian-m… 3/
Read 38 tweets
[RG911Team] As #lockdownfiles gets attention for exposing secret convos about #COVID, we recall the convo WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein had where he asked for approval to bring down WTC 7 on 9/11… even though it takes MONTHS to plan a controlled demolition. #CoverUp #truth
[RG911Team] Fox News journalist Jeffrey Scott Shapiro admitted that this happened, even though he believes the official 9/11 story. Perhaps he did not understand that a demolition request from Silverstein, hours after the Twin Towers were destroyed, made foxnews.com/opinion/shame-…twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
[RG911Team] A typical building demolition takes months to plan and execute, and no skyscraper as tall as WTC Building 7 had ever been brought down with explosives. Such a demolition request would probably never be officially approved… so why did Silverstein ask for it?
Read 6 tweets
Iain M. Banks (1954–2013) was born #OTD, 16 Feb—a🎂🧵
1/7

“Iain Banks… is a novelist who has his own ‘double’, an author for whom the idea of a split writing persona is emphatically not out of place”

—A 2010 article on Banks’s genre-busting career:
thebottleimp.org.uk/2010/11/readin…
Bookclub: THE WASP FACTORY
Available on @BBCSounds – Iain Banks discusses his debut novel with James Naughtie & readers at the @natlibscot
🚨CONTAINS SPOILERS🚨 – read the book before listening to the programme!
2/7
bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01…
HIPPIE COMMIES WITH HYPER-WEAPONS

“I think space opera in general celebrates a certain manic wildness and vivacity of vision, a refusal to be constrained”

A Few Questions About the Culture – an interview with Iain M Banks, on @strangehorizons
3/7
strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/ar…
Read 7 tweets
Time for a #NorthKorean #sciencefiction #comicbook:
Science fiction comic book
The Maestros of High Tech 1
Text Han Kwang-nam
Pictures Choe Sung-hyok
Kumsong Youth Publishing Juche 96(2007) Image
1/
Science fiction comic book
The Maestros of High Tech
Vol. 1
The Monster’s True Identity
Text Han Kwang-nam
Advisors: Prof. Rim Tae-gun, PhD
Ass. Prof. Kang Ki-chan, PhD
Kim Chol-ho, BA
Editing Han Kwang-nam, Song Chol-su
Pictures & cover Choe Sung-hyok, Han Myong-sin Science fiction comic book ...
2/
Layout Chong Hyang-ae, Choe Chong-sun
Proofreading Kim Un-hui
Publisher Kumsong Youth Publishing
Printer Pyongyang Central Printing
Printed March 10, Juche 96(2007)
Released March 15, Juche 96(2007)
Product code ㄱ-6610184
Read 124 tweets
"Humans are prone to giving machines ambiguous or mistaken instructions, and we want them to do what we mean, not what we say. To solve this problem we must find ways to align AI with human preferences, goals & values."
- @MelMitchell1 at @QuantaMagazine:
quantamagazine.org/what-does-it-m…
“All that is needed to assure catastrophe is a highly competent machine combined with humans who have an imperfect ability to specify human preferences completely and correctly.”

- Stuart Russell (@UCBerkeley) as quoted by @MelMitchell1 in her latest @QuantaMagazine article
"It’s a familiar trope in #ScienceFiction — humanity threatened by out-of-control machines who have misinterpreted human desires. Now a not-insubstantial segment of the #AI research community is concerned about this kind of scenario playing out in real life."
- @MelMitchell1
Read 6 tweets
"The 21st Century Question: Emergently Engineering the Future"

Follow this 🧵 today and tomorrow for highlights from our 2022 #AppliedComplexity Network and Board of Trustees Symposium:

santafe.edu/events/annual-…

#Web3 #Cities #Polarization #EmergentEngineering #Decentralization
We start with a talk by SFI President David Krakauer:

"Would anyone care to guess why we're so GOOD at building transistors and so CRAP at designing drugs?"

"This thing [points to transistor] lives in a centralized system. This thing [points to cancer drug] lives in US."
"I'm going to pick on economics, because we like to do that at SFI. 'Ooh, look at that cover! So techy. Global, heat maps...' But here's 'Networks' [in the textbook]. THAT'S IT. Here's '#ComplexityEconomics.' NOTHING."
Read 111 tweets
🚀 We are live! Here is the correct streaming link for all of today's discussions and performances, starting with a panel on complex time with David Krakauer, James Gleick, Ted Chiang, and David Wolpert in a few moments (measured linearly...):

#IPFest
"One of the ideas we had with #InterPlanetary was, 'What would it take to make science hedonistic? And instead of telling people to do it, you'd have to tell people to STOP doing it?"

- SFI President David Krakauer sets the tone for this weekend's celebrations
#IPFest Image
David Krakauer: "Do you have a favorite model or metaphor for #time?"

@JamesGleick: "You've already mentioned a river; that's everybody's favorite. Borges said time is a tiger. People talk about it as a thread. We ONLY talk about time in metaphors." Image
Read 141 tweets
"Across #China, the police are buying technology that harnesses vast #surveillance data to predict #crime and #protest before they happen."

nytimes.com/2022/06/25/tec… #Panopticon #Bentham #startups
1/ "The latest generation of technology digs through the vast amounts of data collected on their daily activities to find patterns and aberrations, promising to predict crimes or protests before they happen."
2/ "It takes extensive evasive maneuvers to avoid the digital tripwires."
Read 13 tweets
Le patron des sénateurs US #Schumer annonce qu'il y aura 1 vote mercredi prochain pour faire du contenu de la jurisprudence Roe/Casey une loi fédérale protégeant le droit à l'#avortement. Mais il sait pertinemment qu'il n'a pas les 60 votes nécessaires.
Gesticulation politique.
2. Quand le Sénat a déjà voté sur 1 mesure semblable fin février- 1 loi fédérale protégeant le droit à l'#avortement- les 50 sénateurs démocrates n'étaient même pas au complet pour la défendre, l'ineffable démocrate conservateur de Virginie Occidentale, Manchin, y est hostile.
3. Non seulement les démocrates n'ont pas de majorité actuelle au Sénat sur le droit à l'#avortement, puisque #Manchin est pro-life, mais il leur faudrait une supermajorité de 60 pour faire passer cette loi à cause de l'obstruction minoritaire (filibuster)...sacrée pour Manchin.
Read 6 tweets
[#Podcast] 25/02 > Histoire de la #ScienceFiction francophone, chapitre 1 : les Hypermondes bit.ly/3sjU9Ks un #LaMethSci à (ré)écouter via @franceculture ! Image
[#Parution] 14/04 > Le ressac de l’espace (réédition de 1962, Rayon Fantastique) bit.ly/37tJ4yc par #PhilippeCurval via @EditionsLaVolte #LaMethSci Image
[#Parution] 2012 > La #ScienceFiction en #France : théorie et histoire d'une littérature bit.ly/3oSVJ3F par #SimonBréan via @PressesSorbonne ; préface #GérardKlein #LaMethSci Image
Read 28 tweets
So, @NGIForward and @ladyniasan are organizing a a gathering to think about Internet technology, and what would need to happen for it to be a harmonious part of a sustainable world. Let me tell you why this is amazing, and what #sciencefiction has to do with it.

THREAD 1/
Three years ago, we started the @SciFiEconomics Lab to help ourselves, and others, to think more openly about economics, beyond the neoclassical paradigm. It turns out many science fiction authors had done inspiring work on alt-economies: edgeryders.eu/t/econ-sf-a-se… 2/
For a while, we used as a thinking tool writing academic essays on fictional economies, in the spirit of @paulkrugman's famous "Theory of Interstellar Trade". But then we realized that this work did not lead to sci-fi's added value in economic thinking: 3/
Read 10 tweets
2018 > #Écotopia : bienvenue dans le futur désirable bit.ly/3ni4GSu via @USBEKetRICA #LaMethSci
2008 > Utopies et dystopies écologiques bit.ly/30NN5ud via @Cairninfo #LaMethSci
13/09 > #Dune, un roman écologique précurseur ? bit.ly/3vf6aR6 via @futurasciences #LaMethSci
Read 41 tweets
19/10 > Des chercheurs créent des essaims auto-reconfigurables de robots à plusieurs pattes bit.ly/3nq5AfP via @scinewscom #LaMethSci
[L’étude à découvrir] 28/07 > Des essaims de robots multi-pattes auto-reconfigurables accomplissent collectivement des tâches terradynamiques difficiles bit.ly/3pBDCjY via @SciRobotics #LaMethSci
14/10 > L'armée américaine pourrait avoir un robot ressemblant à un chien armé d'un fusil de sniper bit.ly/3C8k4qO via @newscientist #LaMethSci
Read 6 tweets
Get the English translation of the new Amazofuturism anthology! #thread

#crowdfunding #sciencefiction

catarse.me/amazofuturolat…
The present collection of amazofuturist short stories is one of the most important movements in the consolidation of the subgenre in our literature.
Authors from different Brazilian regions were selected to celebrate the indigenous peoples of Brazil, demonstrating through this work the respect and support of writers of all races for their cause.
Read 11 tweets
It is very important in this period of humanity to take a serious look at what is happening in the world friends.

Watch this video first in its entirety & reflect upon current situations critically.

🙏

odysee.com/@AfterSkool:7/…
#Menticide is here & with it, a new attempt to establish a "#TechnoTotalitarian" rule over the lives of American citizens.

The final variant of #Coronavirus could very well be the manifestation of a #NewWorldOrder under #totalitarian rule.
That may sound absurd, but what is very concerning is that many talking heads in the media & even public figures are now making very carefully worded emotional appeals to logic to further induce a totalitarian #masspsychosis.
Read 53 tweets
For as long as I remember, I've loved science and also science fiction. 🚀 Science came first for me, but for many, it's been the other way around.

SF is great for inspiring future scientists and igniting interest in science. Luckily, #scicomm & #outreach has begun to notice! ⬇️ Image
I'm currently leading the 'Science Fiction as An Astrobiology Outreach & Education Tool' at @EAIastrobiology. We used reprint SF stories accompanied by original science essays in 'Strangest of All', released last spring to aid outreach amidst lockdowns.

julienovakova.com/strangest-of-a… Image
The positive response prompted us to edit a bigger, more ambitious print book of original astrobiological SF and essays. Titled Life Beyond Us, it's just funded on kickstarter and will be published next fall around the launch of @esa's Rosalind Franklin!

bit.ly/LifeBeyondUs Image
Read 11 tweets

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