{"id":1738,"date":"2006-08-22T12:48:58","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T19:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/8stars.org\/aa\/2006\/08\/22\/acelerando\/"},"modified":"2006-08-22T12:48:58","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T19:48:58","slug":"acelerando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/2006\/08\/22\/acelerando\/","title":{"rendered":"Accelerando"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coincidentally on the same day that scientists announced clear evidence that dark matter really exists<\/a>, I finished reading Accelerando<\/a>, a story about the singularity<\/a> by Charlie Stross.<\/a> As this interview<\/a> with the author points out, it’s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153information-dense\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (resulting in reading aids like the Accelerando Technical Companion<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Saying it’s dense is an understatement. In the early chapters, my (somewhat annoyed) impression was that “this guy has devoured every Boing-boing<\/a> post for the past five years, digested and ruminated them, and vomited them onto the page.” As the book moved on and got weirder and more intense, I decided “this guy drops mind-bombs like a deer running through a forest drops turds.” So my mind is pretty well blown at the moment.<\/p>\n

The singularity is an interesting proposition, an audacious prediction about the future, and this book gives a lot of ideas on the subject to chew on. While reading it, I found myself wondering “does he really believe this stuff?” In that interview, he hedges a bit, but says “any SF that doesn’t try to address the issue is either a dystopia or a fantasy.” So, yes. He’s a pretty smart guy who’s clearly listening to and extrapolating a lot of trends. And it makes me wonder \u00e2\u20ac\u009dcan we create a world too weird for us to inhabit?\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 According to the book, the answer is yes, many times over.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard the year 2040 thrown around as a target date for the singularity. I’ll live that long, most likely. It’ll be an interesting ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

drops mind-bombs like a deer running through a forest drops turds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[107,289,379,391],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-charlie-stross","tag-mind-bomb","tag-science-fiction","tag-singularity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}