The singulatarian spectrum

Mundane SF, like atheism, is so completely mainstream in science and futurology that it's rare that anyone bothers to mention it. The IEEE Spectrum magazine has published a Special Issue on the Singularity aka Rapture of the nerds, pointing out often forgotten issues like:

IT'S A LITTLE EARLY TO TALK ABOUT SIMULATING CONSCIOUSNESS ON MACHINES WHEN WE BARELY KNOW ABOUT THE NEUROLOGY OF A SEA SLUG

but that doesn't ever seem to dampen speculation by those who would also be counting on a painless replacement for fossil fuels in the next ten years, or anti-gravity cars.

The editors gave a good interview in this week's Scientific American Podcast.

Take home message:

• God doesn't exist


• There's no evidence that our pitiful technology is going to somehow invent God in the next ten or a hundred years


• You will die like all other humans before you.

In actuality in the future we'll be wondering whether our great technology is able to perform basic requirements, like feeding us. The best scientists in the world using the fastest and most high-tech computers have made the predictions to within a practical margin of error.

Now pay attention to it.

John Horgan pwnts the Singularitans

Via Andrew Sullivan, a great quote:

"Let's face it. The singularity is a religious rather than a scientific vision. The science-fiction writer Ken MacLeod has dubbed it “the rapture for nerds,” an allusion to the end-time, when Jesus whisks the faithful to heaven and leaves us sinners behind.

Such yearning for transcendence, whether spiritual or technological, is all too understandable. Both as individuals and as a species, we face deadly serious problems, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, overpopulation, poverty, famine, environmental degradation, climate change, resource depletion, and AIDS. Engineers and scientists should be helping us face the world's problems and find solutions to them, rather than indulging in escapist, pseudoscientific fantasies like the singularity."

Read more...

Today.

So after all the hype, the flames, the bitching and counter-bitching, Interzone 216 finally hits the stands today. The Fix (disclaimer: also owned by TTA Press) is the first out the gate with a run down.


In case you missed it, here's the cover again:





and the TOC...


Introduction by Geoff Ryman

How To Make Paper Airplanes by Lavie Tidhar
Endra — From Memory by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
The Hour Is Getting Late by Billie Aul
Remote Control by R.R. Angell
The Invisibles by Élisabeth Vonarburg
Into The Night by Anil Menon
Talk Is Cheap by Geoff Ryman

Features:

Greg Egan: Beyond The Veil Of Reality
interview by Jetse De Vries

Alastair Reynolds: House Of Suns
interview by David Mathew

Plenty of book reviews

Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe

Laser Fodder by Tony Lee

Ansible Link by David Langford

2007 Readers’ Poll: The Results

Geoff Ryman on the radio - now edited

As we all know, editing is very important. Geoff's interview on the Radio 4 arts program mentioned in this post has been snipped out, converted into an mp3, and couldn't be uploaded onto blogger because it isn't a video! It's just sound.

So I've parked it in some random directory reserved for pdf documents in my work web page on a server I own, because the internet doesn't have enough leeched-in connections of this.

So here it is, Geoff's 5 minute interview about Mundane-SF on the radio. I hope that link still works in 2108.

5 days and counting...

And the buzz is starting. Besides Geoff's radio interview (see below),
Damien G Walter over at the Guardian blog has a write-up:

OK, I admit it, sci-fi is boring. After endless Star Trek re-runs, innumerable badly scripted Hollywood movies and a thousand video games with pixel-deep narrative, the once wondrous ideas of sci-fi have become yawn-inducing. Fortunately for me, beyond the world of tedious mass media sci-fi, lies the exciting world of literary science fiction or "SF" constantly producing new ideas to satisfy my hunger for wonder. Now a radical sect of SF writers and critics claim that SF needs to abandon all those wondrous ideas, and concentrate instead on the everyday and the mundane. All hail the Mundane Revolution!

Make sure to check out the comments section too. Best line of the week:

You obviously didn't go to Science Fiction finishing school.

To the BBC

On the BBC on Friday

The Mundane Movement in Science Fiction

Should sci-fi writers create plots which feature futuristic space ships flying faster than the speed of light, or should they focus instead on today’s real scientific discoveries and the changing nature of the planet we live on? That's the debate that been sparked off by a new manifesto for Mundane Sci-Fi. Geoff Ryman, one of the founders of the movement, explains his aims to Kirsty Lang.

The May edition of InterZone Magazine is dedicated to Mundane Sci-Fi. It is published on 8 May.

Click here to listen to it quick. You only have another 6 days until it goes off-air.

"Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past..."

Democracy Now:

"In Bangladesh at least 15,000 garment factory workers went on strike earlier today to call for higher wages to cover the soaring price of food. In South Africa, the country’s main union has kicked off a series of protests over increasing food prices. In recent weeks food riots have also erupted in Haiti, Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. Protests have flared in Morocco, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mexico and Yemen....Here in the United States, food inflation has reached the highest level in seventeen years, and analysts expect it to get worse.

The Telegraph:

"A new Cold War is taking shape, around energy and food. The world intelligentsia has been asleep at the wheel. While we rage over global warming, global hunger has swept in under the radar screen.”

The Independent:

"The global food crisis became official yesterday."

Krugman:

"[I]t’s not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past."

[image courtesy of FT.com]

The Mundanista News Wrap-Up 03/21/08

-Happy Iraq War Anniversary! To celebrate, Oil Change International has released a report on its 5 year climate and energy impact. Money quotes:

"Projected total US spending on the Iraq war could cover all of the global investments in renewable power generation that are needed between now and 2030 in order to halt current warming trends."

and

"If the war was ranked as a country in terms of emissions, it would emit more CO2 each year than 139 of the world’s nations do annually. Falling between New Zealand and Cuba, the war each year emits more than 60% of all countries."

-The Case for Cars! OMG you guys, Robert Zubrin has joined the ranks of DailyKos! *gasp* His mission? Destroy OPEC. (For great justice.) Because only by destroying OPEC and switching to methanol can we beat the arabs to Mars....er something. Best part: Methanol's only considered environmentally hazardous if you want to keep your optic nerves!

-Enough to make yourself sick. Almost ten percent of the U.S. population now suffer from an autoimmune disorder, with that number increasing each year. It now outnumbers both cancer and heart disease in causes of death nationwide.

-Water is for the weak! So because some crybaby hippies insist on bringing attention to the fact that people need water to live, and the fact that most people are in favor of people living, World Water Day is tomorrow. Enjoy it while it lasts. Oh, and by some strange coincidence, they're remaking Dune.

-25 reasons to read New Scientist. NS has a panel discussion of the 25 biggest future threats to biodiversity. Congratulations to the winners!

-My God, it's full of flaws! 2001: A Space Odyssey named one of the ten most historically inaccurate fims evar by Yahoo movies. (Clever, eh?)