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the_fantastic_ms_foxWe're out in the cariboo at 312-03:45:22, stringing. Double-checking the vitals on slug-like hubs, each chloroable synthimal a queen to a thousand lazy drones. Squishy little creatures. Hiding in gopher holes, under scrub, between scraps of shale. They keep an eye on the neighbours, their heaps and tailings. Just like the neighbours keep an eye on us.
/Trust, but Verify./ She casts.
No telemesh out here. My familiar thinks Obama? 2010. United States of North America, power-locus? and I cast it without thinking.
/Reagan. 19... 80s/ She corrects.
An actor thinks my familiar. Maybe it played Obama?
She says she eschews cog-coz. Keeps it down to once in ten. But at 298, even once a decade that's nigh 30 trips in. Well, minus the first seven decades. I guess they didn't have it back then. But 298? Shit. She must have had so much neural supplantation and reconstruction, with the shit they used to worth with, even with anti-agathics she's 80% EmPer if she's a neuron.
Open wiry cylinder, let it slip into the grass, slink away at <1mm/s, little drones tumbling out afterwards. Collapse the cage and stow it.
That pile is supposed to watch for us? In an hour they'll fan out 3m. In two, 6. By tomorrow, 72. One in four will get eaten by birds or stepped on. Even then, doable.
She could almost as easily switch out. But hasn't. Original flesh? Wrinkled, pale, spotted skin that just screams "cancer me." White hair. New teeth though. Says she'll "keep death real;" she'll only leave a sleeper for a fresh print to access as needed, to grow around, "like a tree on a rock." Some combination of SSC-style afterlife beliefs, early transsentientism and some kind of identity trauma that fails out in contemporary context. Baffles me. Once she's gone, she's... gone. Frack - fogeys are weird.
/You and death? You're not more... averse?/ I cast.
She pauses. Always open to personal questions, but nevertheless surprised.
/You're out here. Spying./ I query.
She lifts her face to the stars and chuckles.
/Spying? This is implicitly consensual. More danger from bears or... stray plagues than people. Besides, we can 3-KW burst transmit and they know it./ she sends, tapping the bulge on her shoulder.
Most methusela's barely go past the gate. I don't cast that, but she reads me anyway. Kinematic savantry? Or just practiced guessing?
/Look. I'm hardly risk-averse. I collect - collected - death-threats. Made art out of them./ she cradles her familiar.
/Death-threats?/
/Didn't think of them as such at the time. Different conception of violence. "Rhetoric." And not like that word means now, just "a means of persuading..." "Recycle the computer, imprison the human" "AI love = masturbation" "Soulless." A lot of pickets with flames on them. Whore of Babylon. That sort of-/
Wading through bog, she glances over. Embarassed.
That cast was redacted. Heavily. She used "AI" rights and "AI" marriage instead of... what other topics?
I feel sick.
Why Non-Organic Artificial Sophonts's? Does she not respect them? Her record indicates commitment to the contrary, says my familiar. Why then? A generational example-archetype, maybe? Something's messed up here.
/-sorry. I guess people don't talk like that... anymore./ she apologizes
She probably feels especially bad saying it to me, but I'm more homo-sapiens-slow-cultivated than she is. I'm over two point and a half centuries younger though, so she probably sees me as being more genuinely artificial.
/You didn't report that? Arrange to intervene?/ I query
/!?! Little applied neurolinguistics./ she casts, using the archaic term /Thought permitting depersoning was integral to "collaborative" critical thinking. "Collaborative" CritThink being a fringe concept. At the time. Again, sorry..../
She tries to check the map. Her pulse rises.
/...no wait. "Integral to human dignity."/ she casts /That was the meme. Dignity.... Bio-orthodox permawaste./ she spits.
I watch the anger/disgust bloom on her face, clearly running the edge of de-personifying. I've seen it at meetings. She's hubbed up and she's surprised not to see it in others. Disappointed. Then resigned. Then relieved. Then collectively proud.
This attitude, ready to harm, sculpted, shaped, played down, wired out, yet still there, an artifact. A dangerous creature out of its context. Like a kukri left out to rust. Like that sabretooth at the game farm. A fucking historical treasure. Walking around next to me, nearly tripped, fallen, concussed, bleeding. A stroke even. And never to be reborn. A risk. Her actions are foolish maybe, but integral to... her.
She's looking at me. Guilty.
/Context?/ she begs /Non-interventionists cost us a lot of good people. Most of the first generation. Total loss. Old-style death. No backup. Peeling was illegal, expensive. Printing from a peel was illegal. Storing was illegal. Euthanasia access limited. Not allowed to live. Not allowed to die. They kept it that way. Can you understand?/ rage, shame.
This is out of my context. I could ask her for a cognition image. Or just guess one. Think on it. Maybe when we get back. What an opportunity.
She eyes the ground as she clears a log. /Vengeance/war instinct. Mutual monsters. Better world now./ she grumbles /Just voyeurs in the service of... mutual understanding./ and she laughs.
/Trust, but Verify./ She casts.
No telemesh out here. My familiar thinks Obama? 2010. United States of North America, power-locus? and I cast it without thinking.
/Reagan. 19... 80s/ She corrects.
An actor thinks my familiar. Maybe it played Obama?
She says she eschews cog-coz. Keeps it down to once in ten. But at 298, even once a decade that's nigh 30 trips in. Well, minus the first seven decades. I guess they didn't have it back then. But 298? Shit. She must have had so much neural supplantation and reconstruction, with the shit they used to worth with, even with anti-agathics she's 80% EmPer if she's a neuron.
Open wiry cylinder, let it slip into the grass, slink away at <1mm/s, little drones tumbling out afterwards. Collapse the cage and stow it.
That pile is supposed to watch for us? In an hour they'll fan out 3m. In two, 6. By tomorrow, 72. One in four will get eaten by birds or stepped on. Even then, doable.
She could almost as easily switch out. But hasn't. Original flesh? Wrinkled, pale, spotted skin that just screams "cancer me." White hair. New teeth though. Says she'll "keep death real;" she'll only leave a sleeper for a fresh print to access as needed, to grow around, "like a tree on a rock." Some combination of SSC-style afterlife beliefs, early transsentientism and some kind of identity trauma that fails out in contemporary context. Baffles me. Once she's gone, she's... gone. Frack - fogeys are weird.
/You and death? You're not more... averse?/ I cast.
She pauses. Always open to personal questions, but nevertheless surprised.
/You're out here. Spying./ I query.
She lifts her face to the stars and chuckles.
/Spying? This is implicitly consensual. More danger from bears or... stray plagues than people. Besides, we can 3-KW burst transmit and they know it./ she sends, tapping the bulge on her shoulder.
Most methusela's barely go past the gate. I don't cast that, but she reads me anyway. Kinematic savantry? Or just practiced guessing?
/Look. I'm hardly risk-averse. I collect - collected - death-threats. Made art out of them./ she cradles her familiar.
/Death-threats?/
/Didn't think of them as such at the time. Different conception of violence. "Rhetoric." And not like that word means now, just "a means of persuading..." "Recycle the computer, imprison the human" "AI love = masturbation" "Soulless." A lot of pickets with flames on them. Whore of Babylon. That sort of-/
Wading through bog, she glances over. Embarassed.
That cast was redacted. Heavily. She used "AI" rights and "AI" marriage instead of... what other topics?
I feel sick.
Why Non-Organic Artificial Sophonts's? Does she not respect them? Her record indicates commitment to the contrary, says my familiar. Why then? A generational example-archetype, maybe? Something's messed up here.
/-sorry. I guess people don't talk like that... anymore./ she apologizes
She probably feels especially bad saying it to me, but I'm more homo-sapiens-slow-cultivated than she is. I'm over two point and a half centuries younger though, so she probably sees me as being more genuinely artificial.
/You didn't report that? Arrange to intervene?/ I query
/!?! Little applied neurolinguistics./ she casts, using the archaic term /Thought permitting depersoning was integral to "collaborative" critical thinking. "Collaborative" CritThink being a fringe concept. At the time. Again, sorry..../
She tries to check the map. Her pulse rises.
/...no wait. "Integral to human dignity."/ she casts /That was the meme. Dignity.... Bio-orthodox permawaste./ she spits.
I watch the anger/disgust bloom on her face, clearly running the edge of de-personifying. I've seen it at meetings. She's hubbed up and she's surprised not to see it in others. Disappointed. Then resigned. Then relieved. Then collectively proud.
This attitude, ready to harm, sculpted, shaped, played down, wired out, yet still there, an artifact. A dangerous creature out of its context. Like a kukri left out to rust. Like that sabretooth at the game farm. A fucking historical treasure. Walking around next to me, nearly tripped, fallen, concussed, bleeding. A stroke even. And never to be reborn. A risk. Her actions are foolish maybe, but integral to... her.
She's looking at me. Guilty.
/Context?/ she begs /Non-interventionists cost us a lot of good people. Most of the first generation. Total loss. Old-style death. No backup. Peeling was illegal, expensive. Printing from a peel was illegal. Storing was illegal. Euthanasia access limited. Not allowed to live. Not allowed to die. They kept it that way. Can you understand?/ rage, shame.
This is out of my context. I could ask her for a cognition image. Or just guess one. Think on it. Maybe when we get back. What an opportunity.
She eyes the ground as she clears a log. /Vengeance/war instinct. Mutual monsters. Better world now./ she grumbles /Just voyeurs in the service of... mutual understanding./ and she laughs.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-27 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-28 10:21 am (UTC)Have you read "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow? He publishes his books online for free as a means of marketing them. He also is a contributor/founder of boingboing.net.
Some of the same themes are explored, which is why I mention it.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-28 06:29 pm (UTC)