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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 17/09/2024, Mike Dougherty wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">> On Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 1:59
PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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While The Clinic Seed deals with the impact of uploading
itself on human society, what I had in mind was afterwards (in
a setting where the initial effects of uploading are over and
it's a common or even universal thing), a more focused
exploration of the societal implications of the ability of
uploads to change how quickly time flows for them.
Implications for both the uploaded and the un-uploaded
(assuming there are any). How this ability might affect
interpersonal relationships, people's psychology and how it
could change the way society functions. How it may be, for
some, not just an ability but a necessity, for various reasons
(like sustaining a multi-tiered system with different units
running at different clock-speeds, as per my previous post).<br>
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<div dir="auto">> Have you read Greg Egan's "Permutation City"?</div>
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<div dir="auto">> Many ideas of uploaded 'being' are handled
matter-of-factly in the course of the larger story.</div>
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<div dir="auto">> "Diaspora" goes even farther with a protagonist
creation from semi-randomness, then escaping the confines of the
successively weirder universes while discovering the rules of a
metaverse<br>
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Yes, I have. And Diaspora, and just about all of his stuff, I
think. He's one of my favourite authors.<br>
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I particularly liked the idea of people beaming themselves around
the galaxy to different locations, sometimes a data-centre,
remaining an upload, sometimes being instantiated into a physical
body. And the fact that he doesn't try to get around the speed of
light. So someone might take a few thousand objective years (and
no time at all, subjectively) to go to their destination, leaving
behind their friends and family, who they might not see again for
hundreds of thousands of years, or even never (or
might-as-well-be-never, given that people would be certain to
change over that timespan, and might be unrecognisable even if you
did meet them again). Just that would require a certain degree of
psychological rewiring from how we are now. People living at
different speeds would be - well, I'm not sure I can wrap my head
around it, and I reckon I'm pretty imaginative.<br>
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That's why I'd like to see someone tackle it in a story. Or a
whole bunch of stories.<br>
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(Just to complicate things more, what about people splitting off
copies of themselves, that then run at different speeds! -
Actually, Sean Williams touches on this, in his 'Astropolis'
stories (of which I've only read the first book. A bit tricky to
get hold of the rest)).<br>
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Hm, I wonder if the Tabbians (If you can call them that (if they
exist)) are beaming themselves around between those 24 or so stars
(or probably more by now)?.<br>
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And I wonder if any gamma-ray spillover might come our way, and be
detectable? And one day, perhaps even decodable?<br>
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It would be funny if we learned how to encode minds into a form
they can be transmitted, by studying alien transmissions! (more SF
material there, perhaps :D )<br>
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I'd suggest keeping a good long-term record of any gamma-ray (or
x-ray, or whatever) emissions from that direction. Just in case.<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
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