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ArisKatsaris comments on October 2013 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Fiction Books Thread
Ted Chiang has a new story, as amazing as the previous ones.
I read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley the other day. It was pretty good, better than most 'classics' I've read. I probably liked it better than Nineteen Eighty-four as well, which it's often compared to.
I found out later that Nick Bostrom explicitly used it as an example in some of his Existential Risk related writings, like this one, specifically, to illustrate what the 'singleton' or stable oppressive world government kind of existential risk may look like. If you aren't too worried that you might generalize from fictional evidence, I'd say it's worth a read if you somehow haven't already.
I've previously pointed out that the BNW scenario is similar to many "eutopia" descriptions I've seen proposed by LWers.
I recently read Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince. These are set in a post-singularity solar system; I thought they were good fiction, but was in the odd position of not being able to say if they are good science fiction, because I'm not well-enough versed in quantum physics. Still, they were interesting. I think many Lesswrongers would find the quantum prison the story starts off in to be a fascinating concept.
Seconding this recommendation. They're definitely fun stories that actually have significantly novel post-singularity societies instead of the generic future scifi cultures.
If it matters that it's quantum, it's probably not right. I know of zero cases of fiction where the physics A) was presented as being quantum, B) it actually mattered that it was quantum for something other than being a black box technology (e.g. using a computer, which relies on quantum mechanics, doesn't count), and C) was right. I suppose someone could have decided there was branching and then we never see the other branches, but I can't think of any such cases.
Like, Schild's Ladder has tons of quantum mechanics that might as well have been classical, and is not objectionable. One detail requires that it actually be quantum, and it's screwed up.
Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross is an excellent hard scifi story, with an android accountant as the lead character.