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Psilosopherr
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Do futurists write good books? What are they called?
#21738257 - 05/29/15 07:31 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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I realized today that I spend a huge amount of time trying to imagine the future of our race, and the mechanical races we will spawn. Mostly things related to virtual reality, robots, AI, stuff like that.
But I just think about it on my lonesome, hopefully you guys know some good authors who will have inspiring books?
Or maybe we can just talk about the future right here. You guys are usually pretty thought provoking.
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psi
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21738303 - 05/29/15 07:39 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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My cousin is into a lot of that type of stuff, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are a couple of names that come to mind. "Makers" by Cory Doctorow is one he lent me about a 3d-printing driven manufacturing revolution and its later collapse. I only made it partway through though, marijuana and the internet have ruined my attention span for reading books.
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Seriously_trippin
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21738411 - 05/29/15 08:08 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Star trek is the epitome to visualizing the future. A lot of times it uses real physics and science.
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twighead
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: Psilosopherr] 1
#21738466 - 05/29/15 08:21 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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The Culture novels are a lot more well thought out than 99% of sci fi I've read or seen, Some of the things the author comes up with are mindblowing and badass. Feels truly futuristic.
I love star trek and all, but some things on it are just silly - like why the fuck are their engines about to blow up every few episodes? Some things just don't match up with the level of technology they are portrayed in having in other ways..
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psi
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: twighead]
#21738477 - 05/29/15 08:24 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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It's also stupid how the holodeck is always fucking up and putting people in mortal danger.
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twighead
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: psi]
#21738484 - 05/29/15 08:25 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Hahaha, its also convenient how they can resurrect people by having their bodies data stored in the buffer for the transporter... But they never think of it at first and it always seems like some sort of miracle that they do.
How about they just fucking save everyone's data to a database and not have to worry about that shit?
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Seriously_trippin
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: twighead]
#21738488 - 05/29/15 08:27 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Sure that's true I suppose I site it because the first cell phone design was inspired by star trek. A lot of things do hold up alot don't . Of course writers like Heinlein are more refined but there's some cool things about it.
No risk no reward
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twighead
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: Seriously_trippin]
#21738493 - 05/29/15 08:27 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Yeah its definitely enjoyable and they hit the spot with certain aspects really nicely.
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Void_Hawk
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: twighead]
#21738681 - 05/29/15 09:18 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'm kind of partial to near-future hard science fiction which tends to have plenty of speculative description, and by definition doesn't lean on devices that are improbable regardless of our level of advancement.
For example the eventual ability to download or reproduce our consciousness in a machine seems more probable to me than the inevitable devices such as FTL travel, "inertial dampers" or many other things that are part of the canon for far-future science fiction.
The works to which I refer are more likely to involve (currently) plausible action within the solar system. Things like colonization of the moon or Mars, emergent AI on Earth, orbital habitats, hollowed-out asteroids, extremely immersive VR, building of a space elevator . . .
Authors that come to mind: Ben Bova, Kim Stanley Robinson Mars books (especially Red Mars), Gison; some Pohl, Clarke, Stephen Baxter, Peter Hamilton.
For some it depends on the book of course, but cyberpunk and hard near-future science fiction deliver a lot of interesting, creative, and plausible views of future tech, In some cases, equally interesting are many worthy if experimental speculations on future society, individual and collective psychology, the role of government and business in future society . . .
Obviously this is relevant to my interests as well.
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I_was_the_walrus
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21738735 - 05/29/15 09:29 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Void_Hawk
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: I_was_the_walrus]
#21739075 - 05/29/15 10:44 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Previously I mentioned fiction but there are of course many great non-fiction books that speculate on the future. Trans-humanism and nanotechnology are a couple of good topics.
a couple of good ones: Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition, older - one of many looks at the coming/emerging age of "transhuman" possibilities that await when we adopt self-driven, technological "evolution".
Engines of Creation, Nanotech; Drexler has other great ones
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ilus
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: I_was_the_walrus] 2
#21739087 - 05/29/15 10:48 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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I would HIGHLY recommend checking out Buckminster Fuller. He has 30+ books on ALL types of ideas for the future ranging from homes, physics, structures of civilization. He invented the geodesic dome (the big ball at Epcot - Spaceship Earth that he coined). I use his idea of tensegrity all the time for art projects and stage design.
"Buckminster Fuller was an early environmental activist. He was very aware of the finite resources the planet has to offer, and promoted a principle that he termed "ephemeralization", which, in essence—according to futurist and Fuller disciple Stewart Brand—Fuller coined to mean "doing more with less".[28] Resources and waste material from cruder products could be recycled into making more valuable products, increasing the efficiency of the entire process. Fuller also introduced synergetics, an encompassing term which he used broadly as a metaphoric language for communicating experiences using geometric concepts and, more specifically, to reference the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components. Fuller coined this term long before the term synergy became popular.
Fuller was a pioneer in thinking globally, and he explored principles of energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design.[29][30] He cited François de Chardenedes' opinion that petroleum, from the standpoint of its replacement cost out of our current energy "budget" (essentially, the net incoming solar flux), had cost nature "over a million dollars" per U.S. gallon (US$300,000 per litre) to produce. From this point of view, its use as a transportation fuel by people commuting to work represents a huge net loss compared to their earnings.[31] An encapsulation quotation of his views might be, "There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller
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Psilosopherr
A psilly goose



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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: twighead]
#21739123 - 05/29/15 10:56 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
twighead said: The Culture novels are a lot more well thought out than 99% of sci fi I've read or seen, Some of the things the author comes up with are mindblowing and badass. Feels truly futuristic.
I love star trek and all, but some things on it are just silly - like why the fuck are their engines about to blow up every few episodes? Some things just don't match up with the level of technology they are portrayed in having in other ways..
I'm reading about it on wikipedia, sounds pretty interesting. sounds like some good moral dilemmas
I'm looking up everybody else's suggestions too, I promise. just maybe not tonight
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ilus
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: Psilosopherr]
#21739209 - 05/29/15 11:15 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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This isn't a book, but here is a fun one that I think will align with what you're after...
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize. The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. A Type I civilization uses all available resources on its home planet, Type II harnesses all the energy of its star, and Type III of its galaxy. The scale is only hypothetical, but it puts energy consumption in a cosmic perspective. It was first proposed in 1964 by the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev (Kardashyov). Various extensions of the scale have been proposed since, from a wider range of power levels (types 0, IV and V) to the use of metrics other than pure power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
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ilus
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: ilus]
#21739240 - 05/29/15 11:22 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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If you're looking for AI stuff and technological singularity - Kurzweil is your guy for sure. He has some interesting ideas on transhumanism and living forever in robot world. 
Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil (/ˈkɜrzwaɪl/ kurz-wyl; born February 12, 1948) is an American author, computer scientist, inventor, futurist, and is a director of engineering at Google. Aside from futurology, he is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, as has been displayed in his vast collection of public talks, wherein he has shared his primarily optimistic outlooks on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.
Kurzweil has authored seven books, five of which have been national bestsellers. The Age of Spiritual Machines has been translated into 9 languages and was the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in science. Kurzweil's book The Singularity Is Near was a New York Times bestseller, and has been the #1 book on Amazon in both science and philosophy. His latest bestseller is How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed.[11] Kurzweil speaks widely to audiences public and private and regularly delivers keynote speeches at industry conferences like DEMO, SXSW and TED. His website catalogs his public speaking, publications and media appearances.[12] He maintains the news website KurzweilAI.net, which has over three million readers annually.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil
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wakeINpeople
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: ilus]
#21739521 - 05/30/15 01:16 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Check out books by Robert Metzger
I'm reading one called C.U.S.P , and it's pretty tough. I've had to read many sentences twice or more just to comprehend the technology being used. Implants in the eyes of people in a future dystopian Earth, which can connect them to a limitless information realm called the VOID, which is frequented by entities which observe you in the VOID.....just to start......and all kinds of other cool stuff in a future Earth.
His stuff is considered "Hard Science Fiction"
Here's a some stuff from Wikipedia about him...
Robert A. Metzger (born 1956) is an electrical engineer and science fiction author. He was a Nebula Award finalist in the novel category in 2002 for his second novel, Picoverse.
Metzger began writing science fiction stories as a child, but it was not until 1987 that he sold his first science fiction short story. He published his first novel, Quad World, in 1991. It was not until 2002 that he published Picoverse; he published his third and most recent novel, Cusp, in 2005.
Metzger's works are widely considered hard science fiction. Greg Bear called him "one of our most ambitious writers of high-tech, hard physics science fiction."
Metzger holds a B.S., an M.S., and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UCLA. He is co-founder of the technical journal Compound Semiconductor, and has authored over a hundred professional research papers. He has also written several articles on science for a popular audience for Wired magazine, and has published speculative studies involving climate engineering and space propulsion, co-authored with fellow scientist/science fiction novelists Gregory Benford and Geoffrey Landis, respectively. Metzger is also active with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Metzger is currently the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Kyma Technologies in Raleigh, NC. He works in the areas of equipment development and crystal growth of GaN and AlN alloys by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy (HVPE) and Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD), as well as the development of photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) used for pulsed power applications, generation of high power microwaves (HPM) and electromagnetic pulses (EMP).
Edited by wakeINpeople (05/30/15 01:18 AM)
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Sammysong
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Re: Do futurists write good books? What are they called? [Re: wakeINpeople]
#21739539 - 05/30/15 01:27 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Philip K Dick, a sci-fi writer, wrote some extraordinary books on technology, mind control, drugs, society, neurosciences, etc.
Why would one man write nearly nine thousand pages after the epiphanic experience of being fired upon by a “pink beam of info-rich light?” Philip K. Dick attempts to explicate a 1974 experience of what he called “pure consciousness.” In this mammoth text, Dick worked through the range of all possible explanations for this anomalous event of “ultra thought”, including an alien immanent god he called VALIS, a cosmic galactic network of living information. By pursuing a relentless path of writing and thinking through the unbelievable with humor, skepticism and a passion for the truth, Dick ultimately exhausts his capacity to think any further, arriving, again, at pure consciousness. Beyond thought, PKD writes up his journey as a story featuring himself as a fictional character in the novel Valis. Through the pages of The Exegesis and the novels, PKD discovers and relates the unthinkable: the self itself does not exist, relating perhaps the necessary and sufficient conditions for the experiences of 1974: what the Advaita tradition calls the perception of “no self.”
If you want to understand PKD, you'll have to know a little about Gnosticism, Jakob Boehme, the Nag Hammadi gospels, Hermeticism, Robert Anton Wilson, etc.
Even Terence McKenna understood Philip K. Dick. http://disinfo.com/2013/01/i-understand-philip-k-dick/
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Edited by Sammysong (05/30/15 01:38 AM)
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