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Post by Sekot on Aug 9, 2016 23:21:10 GMT -5
i wont say its good or bad until you put some goddamn words on some goddamn paper in the form of a goddamn story tho
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Post by Matteo ((Taed)) on Aug 9, 2016 23:28:48 GMT -5
But Protocol is the foundation of the economy. You're saying so yourself. Its rules dictate the very rules the society can play with, it is essentially a god. All things that create Art/War/Science/whatever are bound by whatever algorithms allow Protocol to dispense what it does. If I need a potato, I have to play by whatever rules my society has set. They have to play by whatever rules that dispenses potatoes. Whosoever controls the Protocol, controls reality. Protocol is the essence of whatever liberation the populace believes they have, even though they're arguably more bound to the economic system than we are now. In this setting, no one person can be their own government unless allowed by the Protocol system. I can only forsee this as being hilariously bloody as everyone attempts to wage whatever wars they can to obtain democratic control. And if they can't obtain democratic control, that just further entrenches the centralized power of the protocol algorithms. The economic system/algorithms/Protocol owns everyone else. What you've created is a competition-based societal monster. If competition isn't bound into the system, then again I ask why can't I just create my own protocol and make whatever the hell I want? Isn't that true liberation from material processes? Or have I misunderstood and everyone has their own protocol? This is why I'm torn over writing in any sort of control over the Protocol infrastructure. Because even if I say that the basic amenities are still guaranteed, it seems like you've zeroed right in on the idea that someone could seize control of the system and use it to influence others. Which, to be fair, is probably a fair concern. The intent is to take having to worry about the requirements for survival entirely out of the public consciousness. In the Culture books, Banks does this by putting everything in the hands of the Minds, and saying that they're so smart they can use 1% of their brains to run our whole society better than we could. My approach is a response to this, and it's similar in many ways, but I want my actors to still retain their autonomy and free will (hence, again, the libertarian comparison) I think that if the potatoes were to just sort of show up, and there are no requirements to accessing them, then that should be possible. It's essentially taking a process like eating, and putting it on the same level as a process like breathing. You don't have to worry about it; the raw materials are freely available and there's an automated system that handles the process. |
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Post by Sekot on Aug 9, 2016 23:47:46 GMT -5
What I like about the Minds, though I haven't read all that much Banks, is that its basically a story of how humanity got so fed up with themselves that they decided to make machines that could make bigger machines that then basically become adults and they get to play in their little playground and do whatever. Literally nothing matters (though I think the book Matter might tackle this, no spoilers).
This opinion subject to change when I can finally get around to reading more books.
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Post by Matteo ((Taed)) on Aug 10, 2016 6:11:56 GMT -5
I like that about the Minds too, but he's done it better than I can, so I need to do something kinda different.
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Aug 10, 2016 12:52:05 GMT -5
Had a cool dream last night that anyone writing Urban Fantasy can use.
Dreamt I got an email with a suspicious link in it, when I clicked the link it ran a bunch of scary code on my computer and opened a portal through my monitor and all these crazy demon critters started crawling out and all over me and started digesting me into bits of code.
It was strange, but the idea is cool.
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Post by James on Aug 10, 2016 15:35:45 GMT -5
Maybe Protocol wasn't even built by them originally, so they're basically living inside the empty shell of another disappeared civilization. (This is obviously the less utopian portrayal, although the day-to-day lives of the residents would still be pretty damn sweet) It's a pity you're not wanting to do any narrative writing, because that's the start of a pretty cool plot. EDIT: Marketing too. They'll definitely pay for marketing. And Law, or its equivalent. All of this is a flimsy pretence to explain why James and I will still have jobs in 50,000 years. Verily. |
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Post by Matteo ((Taed)) on Aug 14, 2016 18:31:39 GMT -5
How do we feel about morality in our fiction? Especially as it relates to realism and relatability.
I reread the most recent Dresden book yesterday, and I was noticing how his moralizing and grappling with his demons is far and away the worst part of the book. But! I feel like maybe the series wouldn't work as well without it? Like maybe taking a different tack wouldn't have the same legs across 14 books?
I've actually debated how I want to handle this in my "one day I'll finish" urban fantasy novel. Comedically, there is definitely a lot you can do with characters who commit heinous crimes in a goofy and loveable way. Like, I think I could definitely pull off a Deadpool sort of vibe if I wanted. Even with my characters being a married couple, I think it could still potentially work; the Deadpool + Morena Baccarin romance was honestly one of my favourite on-screen relationships in a while.
It might loose steam, though. I think the entertainment value mostly comes from having a setting that's ridiculous and over the top, so you probably need to keep 1-upping yourself, and if you loose that momentum then you're just left with these kind of unrelateable asshole characters.
The TV show Archer kind of ran into that. They spent their shock value wad on rape and cancer gags in the early seasons, and it was amazing, but the later episodes haven't been quite as good.
On the other hand, those jokes are right in my wheelhouse. Remember that joke I made about the vagina lepidopterist the other day, Jason? Harry Dresden couldn't make that joke, dammit!
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Post by Matteo ((Taed)) on Aug 14, 2016 22:16:52 GMT -5
Also, separate question: how does everybody else feel about "scale" or "power" as a sort of stylistic genre? The most obvious example being something high-tech and huge like Ringworld.
I really get off on that shit. Reading a well thought-out and plausible depiction of a novel BIG idea might be one of my favourite things. A lot of my favourite authors do it (Banks, Stross, Alastair Reynolds), a lot of my favourite video games do it (Halo, Mass Effect) ... not a lot of my favourite movies do it, but I think that's mainly because movies are kind of still just getting to the point of technical sophistication where they can do that flavour of awe properly, and they're frankly still not doing it super well. We'll see if they finally make that Rendezvous with Rama movie if they can pull it off.
And I think Ian's the same way. He likes Banks now, and he's liked transhuman stuff for ages. I seem remember that both of our favourite parts about the Quantum Thief series was peeking at how godlike and awesome the Sobornost was.
I almost convinced myself back into liking John C Wright again today, in spite of his gaybashing and the fact that he's a terrible human being, because I was reading this article he wrote full of crazy audacious ideas about artificial stellar nurseries and supermassive black holes and shit.
Do the rest of you get tingles reading about that kind of stuff as well?
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Post by The Counter Cultist(Sawyer) on Aug 15, 2016 2:45:32 GMT -5
Do the rest of you get tingles reading about that kind of stuff as well? Yes. But I definitely haven't read enough of it. I'm also trying to include in at least someway with the sf/fantasy novel that(like you and your urban fantasy novel) I swear I will finish. At least somewhere in the series. I mean really I'm going for something like High Fantasy in space, so I'd like to think of things like 'small scale' and 'realism' as suggestions. |
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Post by James on Aug 28, 2016 17:31:28 GMT -5
I ended up writing 1,900 words of fiction yesterday. I'm pretty pleased with what I have and I'm reckon a third of a way through a completely new story. I think it may also have been my first time writing fiction since the middle of April.
So yesterday was nice.
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Post by James on Aug 31, 2016 19:13:54 GMT -5
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Aug 31, 2016 19:29:24 GMT -5
I'm down. I ended up judging last time so didn't get to play. |
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Post by Injin on Aug 31, 2016 19:55:43 GMT -5
As usual, I am all for it. |
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Inkdrinker
Scribe
Sepulcher: a stage enlived by ghosts.
Posts: 908
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Post by Inkdrinker on Aug 31, 2016 20:09:04 GMT -5
I'm practically salivating. |
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Post by James on Aug 31, 2016 20:31:56 GMT -5
Well, if Sam's "ya" on Skype meant he was keen then we're already at 5 (including myself). I might be a total idiot considering what I've got on at the moment... but I'm actually quite keen to write. We'd need 2 judges, though, so I'd judge if we didn't have enough volunteers.
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