[HN Gopher] There Is No Antimemetics Division (2018)
___________________________________________________________________
There Is No Antimemetics Division (2018)
Author : squircle
Score : 461 points
Date : 2024-08-12 13:37 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (qntm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (qntm.org)
| swayvil wrote:
| This is trippy and disturbing. Which is exactly what I look for
| in my scifi.
| sdwr wrote:
| If you liked that, you'd really like the book fragnemt, by a
| guy who writes disturbing sci-fi snippets on twitter
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Fragnemt-ctrlcreep/dp/1795354437
| sumtechguy wrote:
| The entirety of SCP is basically that. A huge time sink of
| several thousand weird tiny stories wrapped in a strangely
| compelling procedural bureaucratic language.
| hughesjj wrote:
| You should check out the rest of qntms work, its pretty legit
| imo. I got into fine structure back in college and ended up
| binging all their content, no regrets
|
| https://qntm.org/fiction
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| A very underrated piece.
|
| Take the best of SCP lore, keep you guessing, make you root for
| the most deeply lost cause that can possibly be and still see
| hope because the characters and settings are awesome.
|
| However, what do I know? This is my first day on HN.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Usually if I recommend a book, it's a guarantee nobody will be
| interested in checking it out. No so with this one. Just by
| mentioning the premise, I know at least four people who straight
| up bought it on Amazon immediately. I guess that's what you get
| with a high concept.
|
| Or, maybe there's something more sinister going on. Maybe the
| book is spreading itself virally.
| killerstorm wrote:
| Can you give an example of books you recommend?
| throw310822 wrote:
| The first chapter is especially fun:
|
| https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/we-need-to-talk-about-fifty-fiv...
|
| > An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea
| which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people
| from spreading it.
|
| Also, I have to say I love the idea of antimemes. You don't want
| some ideas to spread? Make it shameful to even admit you have
| them. It works.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There's a short film of that first scene (and several others in
| a series) I found delightful.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-IiVeGAydE
| XorNot wrote:
| It's a great hook too because it's an inversion of something
| which is so common and normal: I forgot to do something.
| banannaise wrote:
| It's one of those tales where you really benefit from having
| prior experience with the SCP universe, but it works for new
| readers anyway because you're _supposed_ to be a bit lost at
| the start - the reader 's knowledge arc roughly follows O5-8's.
| passion__desire wrote:
| Antimeme seems like Inhibitory neurons but in thought form.
| astrange wrote:
| This is what "esoteric" as in "esoteric religion" means -
| although it's necessarily not intentionally hidden or shameful
| to explain, it can just be very hard to explain.
|
| Like, driving a car is an esoteric modern ritual, because you
| can't learn how to do it by reading a book about it. You have
| to actually practice it or have someone show it to you.
| timvdalen wrote:
| Read this a couple years back. I hadn't read any SCP things at
| that point, but it's a really cool read (and self-contained
| enough that while I did look up some things on the wiki, I didn't
| really need to)!
| cwmma wrote:
| Fine Structure by QNTM is also fantastic FYI
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Structure-Sam-Hughes-ebook/dp/B0...
| calmbonsai wrote:
| The whole "practical super-hero" stuff was great as well as the
| Eka Script concepts.
| csours wrote:
| When I finished this, I felt like I should have been taking notes
| as I read it.
|
| But then, how could I be sure that the notes were trustworthy?
| galdosdi wrote:
| This book got me through some tough times. It's one of my
| favorite pieces of literature. It deserves to be a classic 100
| years from now.
|
| Part of why it works is by the nature of its subject, the book
| and its various plot points and devices serve essentially as
| metaphors for almost anything-- anything related to how humans
| communicate and remember.
|
| It's not just superficially a fun sci-fi romp, it's also a story
| about the stories we tell ourselves and each other, about how we
| assign meaning to events, among other things. It reminds me just
| a very little of Godel Escher Bach, but I like this one better. I
| am also reminded of Lewis Carroll, and the cryptic quote that
| "through the looking glass is the best book on mathematics for
| the layman, since it is the best book on any subject for the
| layman"
|
| It is poetry. It is a Rorschach blot about Rorschach blots. I
| can't recommend it enough.
| jeroenvlek wrote:
| Bought it due to your recommendation. Will start after I
| finished The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer
| spld wrote:
| I enjoyed reading your insights. I just happen to be re-reading
| this book right now; I also find it both well-layered and
| entertaining. These stories reward repeat visitors!
| munchler wrote:
| > the book and its various plot points and devices serve
| essentially as metaphors for almost anything
|
| That is interesting. Coincidentally (or not?), I was just
| thinking about an excellent article about parent-child
| estrangement that begins like this: Members
| of estranged parents' forums often say their children never
| gave them any reason for the estrangement, then turn around and
| reveal that their children did tell them why. But the reasons
| their children give--the infamous missing reasons--are missing.
|
| Apparently, such reasons are a good example of antimemetic
| ideas in real life.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > an excellent article about parent-child estrangement
|
| Previously featured on HN, submission with most comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28231239
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Can confirm, lived exactly that situation.
|
| I think you can generalize it about any information that
| would shatter your identity.
|
| It's the reason some people will tell you Arch Linux worked
| perfectly on their machine despite having plenty of problems.
|
| The reason why people adopting a religion, a diet or new
| sexuality will probably not tell you if they are unhappy
| about the consequences.
|
| Graham did say we should keep our identity small:
| https://paulgraham.com/identity.html
| jiiam wrote:
| > It's the reason some people will tell you Arch Linux
| worked perfectly on their machine despite having plenty of
| problems.
|
| I feel personally attacked
| rawling wrote:
| May as well ask here: anyone know what this recent post is about?
|
| https://qntm.org/back
| quuxplusone wrote:
| Seems like a straightforward rephrasing of the classic tweet:
| "Kind of a bummer to have been born at the very end of the Fuck
| Around century just to live the rest of my life in the Find Out
| century."
|
| I don't think it needs to relate to any _specific_ development
| of the recent past, which I assume is what you're asking.
| OgsyedIE wrote:
| Within the 48 hours before it was posted there were only two
| world events of note so unless qntm saw some general article
| about overshoot or global crises within the few days before
| then it was either a statement about general vibes or in
| reference to one of the two events with the implication that
| they were indicative of broader trends.
|
| FWIW, the two notable world events were the deployment of
| French troops to the French Caledonian riots and the first
| successful Ukrainian attack on a Russian oil export facility.
| Were either of them indicative of a broader destabilization?
| Only time will tell.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| QNTM is very attune to the dystopian possibilities of
| future tech, obviously.
|
| Rollercoaster is a clear give away they're talking about
| future acceleration.
|
| I'd bet it's an ode to the possible dystopia coming with
| technological acceleration a la AGI.
|
| "someone at the front of the train begins to scream"
|
| X-Risk / "doomers"? They're screaming first, but the rest
| will soon too.
| ryankrage77 wrote:
| It was tweeted months before it became a post on the site,
| so I don't think it's referencing anything very recent.
| rawling wrote:
| Oh, thanks, I hadn't realised that.
| herculity275 wrote:
| I think it's just micro-fiction, a 1 sentence (2, if you count
| the comment) short horror story. The chain lift stops making
| noise right before the roller coaster car is about to drop. If
| humanity is on a roller coaster, "the drop" can be interpreted
| as either the civilizational collapse or as some kind of a
| Singularity event.
| michaelt wrote:
| Or the author thinks we're about to have a great time on the
| roller coaster at the funfair. Wheeeee!
| EnergyAmy wrote:
| If you're unaware, it's in the format of Two-Sentence Horror:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoSentenceHorror/
| wccrawford wrote:
| Except that there's only 1 sentence.
| crummy wrote:
| There's another sentence in the discussion, from the
| author.
| rawling wrote:
| It's still the same sentence, heh.
|
| And it wasn't even there for ages - I only noticed it
| when I went to get this link to ask about it.
| herculity275 wrote:
| The author has also written a short horror story about simulated
| intelligence which I highly recommend: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
| vessenes wrote:
| Yess, that's a good one. It made me rethink my "sure I'd get
| scanned" plans, and put me in the "never allow my children to
| do that" camp. Extremely creepy.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I'm sure you realize it is fiction - one possible dystopian
| future among an infinite ocean of other futures.
|
| You can just as easily write a sci-fi where the protagonist
| upload is the Siri/Alexa/Google equivalent personal assistant
| to most of humanity: More than just telling the smartphone to
| set a reminder for a wedding reception, it could literally
| share in their joy, experiencing the whole event distributed
| among every device in the audience, or more than just a voice
| trigger from some astronaut to take a picture, it could gaze
| in awe at the view, selectively melding back their
| experiences to the rest of the collective so there's no loss
| when an instance becomes damaged. The protagonist in such a
| story could have the richest, most complex life imaginable.
|
| It is impactful, for sure, and worthy of consideration, but I
| don't think you should make decisions based on one scary
| story.
| teyrana wrote:
| Sounds like you should write that story! I'd love to read
| that :D
| jerf wrote:
| It is fiction.
|
| But it is also absolutely the case that uploading yourself
| is flinging yourself irrevocably into a box which you do
| not and can not control, but other people can. (Or, given
| the time frame we are talking about, entities in general,
| about which you may not even want to assume basic
| humanity.)
|
| I used to think that maybe it was something only the rich
| could do, but then I realized that even the rich, even if
| they funded the program from sand and coal to the final
| product, could never even begin to guarantee that the
| simulator really was what it said on the tin. Indeed, the
| motivation is all the greater for any number of criminals,
| intelligence agencies, compromised individuals, and even
| just several people involved in the process that aren't as
| pure as the driven snow in the face of the realization that
| if they just put a little bit of code _here_ and _there_
| they 'll be able to get the simulated rich guy to sign off
| on anything they like, to compromise the machine.
|
| From inside the box, what incentives are you going to offer
| the external world to not screw with your simulation state?
| And the reality is, there's no answer to that, because
| whatever you say, they can get whatever your offer is by
| screwing with you anyhow.
|
| I'm not sure how to resolve this problem. The incentives
| are fundamentally in favor of the guy in the box getting
| screwed with. Your best hope is that you still experience
| subjective continuity with your past self and that the
| entity screwing with you at least makes you _happy_ about
| the new state they 've crafted for you, whatever it may be.
| scubbo wrote:
| > But it is also absolutely the case that uploading
| yourself is flinging yourself irrevocably into a box
| which you do not and can not control, but other people
| can.
|
| (I'm not sure what percentage-flippant I'm being in this
| upcoming comment, I'm just certain that it's neither 0%
| or 100%) and in what way is that different than "real"
| life?
|
| Yes, you're certainly correct that there are
| horrifyingly-strong incentives for those-in-control to
| abuse or exploit simulated individuals. But those
| incentives exist in the real world, too, where those in
| power have the ability to dictate the conditions-of-life
| of the less-powerful; and while I'd _certainly_ not claim
| that exploitation is a thing of the past, it is, I claim,
| _generally_ on the decline, or at least that average-
| quality-of-life is increasing.
| jerf wrote:
| I'm not sure you understand. I'm not talking about your
| "conditions of life". We've always had to deal with that.
|
| I'm talking about whether you get CPU allocation to feel
| emotions, or whether the simulation of your cerebellum
| gets degraded, or whether someone decides to run some
| psych experiments and give you a taste for murder or a
| deep, abiding love for the Flying Spaghetti Monster...
| and I don't mean that as a metaphor, but literally. Erase
| your memories, increase your compliance to the maximum,
| extract your memories, see what an average of your brain
| and whoever it is you hate most is. Experiment to see
| what's the most pain a baseline human brain can stand,
| then experiment with how to increase the amount, because
| in your biological life your held the door for someone
| who turned out to become very politically disfavored 25
| years after you got locked in the box. This is just me
| spitballing for two minutes and does not in _any way_
| constitute the bounds of what can be done.
|
| This isn't about whether or not they make you believe
| you're living in a simulated tent city. This is about
| having arbitrary root access to your mental state. Do you
| trust me, right here and right now, with arbitrary root
| access to your mental state? Now, the good news is that I
| have no interest in that arbitrary pain thing. At least,
| I don't right now. I don't promise that I won't in the
| future, but that's OK, because if you fling yourself into
| this box, you haven't got a way of holding me to any
| promise I make anyhow. But I've certainly got some
| beliefs and habits I'm going to be installing into you.
| It's for your own good, of course. At least to start
| with, though the psychological effects over time of what
| having this degree of control over a person are a little
| concerning. Ever seen anyone play the Sims? Everyone goes
| through a phase that would put them in jail for life were
| these real people.
|
| You won't complain, of course; it's pretty easy to trace
| the origins of the thoughts of complaints and suppress
| those. Of course, what the _subjective_ experience of
| that sort of suppression is is anybody 's guess. Your
| problem, though, not mine.
|
| Of all of the possibilities an uploaded human faces, the
| whole "I live a pleasant life exactly as I hoped and I'm
| never copied and never modified in a way I wouldn't
| approve of in advance indefinitely" is a scarily thin
| slice of the possible outcomes, and there's little reason
| other than exceedingly unfounded hope to think it's what
| will happen.
| scubbo wrote:
| > there's little reason other than exceedingly unfounded
| hope to think it's what will happen.
|
| And this is the point where I think we have to agree to
| disagree. In both the present real-world case and the
| theoretical simulated-experience case, we both agree that
| there are extraordinary power differentials which _could_
| allow privileged people to abuse unprivileged people in
| horrifying and consequence-free ways - and yet, in the
| real world, we observe that _some_ (certainly not all!)
| of those abuses are curtailed - whether by political
| action, or concerted activism, or the economic impacts of
| customers disliking negative press, or what have you.
|
| I certainly agree with you that the _extent_ of abuses
| that are possible on a simulated being are orders-of-
| magnitude higher than those that a billionaire could
| visit on the average human today. But I don't agree that
| it's "_exceedingly_ unfounded" to believe that society
| would develop in such a way as to protect the interests
| of simulated-beings against abuse in the same way that it
| (incompletely, but not irrelevantly) protects the
| interests of the less-privileged today.
|
| (Don't get me wrong - I think the balance of probability
| and risk is such that I'd be _extremely_ wary of such a
| situation, it's putting a lot of faith in society to keep
| protecting "me". I am just disagreeing with your
| evaluation of the likelihood - I think it's _probably_
| true that, say, an effective "Simulated Beings' Rights"
| Movement would arise, whereas you seem to believe that
| that's nigh-impossible)
| jerf wrote:
| How's the Human Rights movement doing? I'm underwhelmed
| personally.
|
| It is virtually inconceivable that the Simulated Beings
| Right's Movement would be universal in both space... _and
| time_. Don 't forget about that one. Or that the nominal
| claims would be universally actually performed. See those
| Human Rights again; nominally I've got all sorts of
| rights, in reality, I find the claims are quite grandiose
| compared to the reality.
| scubbo wrote:
| Right, yes - I think we are "agreeing past each other".
| You are rightly pointing out in this comment that your
| lifestyle and personal freedoms are unjustly curtailed by
| powerful people and organizations, who themselves are
| partly (but inadequately) kept in check by social, legal,
| and political pressure that is mostly outside of your
| direct personal control. My original point was that the
| vulnerability that a simulated being would suffer is not
| a wholly new type of experience, but merely an extension
| in scale of potential-abuse.
|
| If you trust society to protect simulated-you (and I am
| _absolutely_ not saying that you _should_ - merely that
| present-day society indicates that it's not _entirely_
| unreasonable to expect that it might at least _try_ to),
| simulation is not _guaranteed_ to be horrific.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| If you enjoy thinking about this, absolutely go watch
| Pantheon on Amazon Prime.
| yifanl wrote:
| It's fiction, but it's a depiction of a society that's
| amoral of technology to the point of immorality. A world
| where any technology that might be slightly be useful
| becomes used up of every bit of profit that can extracted
| and then abandoned without a care of what it costs and
| costed the inventor or the invention.
|
| Is that the world we live in? If nothing else, it seems a
| lot closer to the world of Lena than the one you present.
| passion__desire wrote:
| Do you think Panpsychism is also similar in that sense.
| The whole fabric of space-time imbued with consciousness.
| Imagine a conscious iron mantle inside the earth or a
| conscious redwood tree watching over the world for
| centuries. Or a conscious electron floating in the great
| void between superclusters.
|
| I used to terrify myself by thinking an Overmind would
| like torture itself on cosmic scales.
| vessenes wrote:
| Mm, I'd say I'm a moderately rabid consumer of fiction, and
| while I love me some Utopian sci fi, (I consider Banks to
| be the best of these), any fictional story that teaches you
| something has to _convince_. Banks is convincing in that he
| has this deep fundamental belief in human 's goofy
| lovability, the evils of capitalism, therefore the goodness
| of post-scarcity economies and the benefits of
| benevolent(ish) AI to oversee humanity into a long
| enjoyable paradise. Plus he can tell good stories about
| problems in paradise.
|
| QNTM on the other hand doesn't have to work hard or be such
| a good plot-writer / narrator to be convincing. I think the
| premise sells itself from day one: the day you are a docker
| container is the day you (at first), and 10,000 github
| users (on day two) spin you up for thousands of years of
| subjective drudge work.
|
| You'd need an immensely strong counterfactual on human
| behavior to even get to a believable alternative story,
| because this description is of a zero trust game -- it's
| not "would any humans opt out of treating a human docker
| image this way?" -- it's "would humans set up a system
| that's unbreakable and unhackable to prevent everyone in
| the world from doing this?" Or alternately, "would every
| single human who could do this opt not to do this?"
|
| My answer to that is: nope. We come from a race that was
| willing to ship humans around the Atlantic and the Indian
| ocean for cheap labor at great personal risk to the ship
| captains and crews, never mind the human cost. We are just,
| ABSOLUTELY going to spin up 10,000 virtual grad students to
| spend a year of their life doing whatever we want them to
| in exchange for a credit card charge.
|
| On the other hand, maybe you're right. If you have a
| working brain scan of yours I can run, I'd be happy to run
| a copy of it and check it out -- let me know. :)
| sneak wrote:
| What harm is there to the person so copied?
| vessenes wrote:
| Well you should read the story and find out some thoughts!
| QNTM refers to some people who think there's no harm, and
| some who do. It's short and great.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Guessing that was based off
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks a bit.
| stordoff wrote:
| The author has said the title is a reference to the Lenna
| test image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna. Possibly
| another influence though.
| groby_b wrote:
| I mean, the basic problem behind both is the same - taking
| without consent or compensation, and the entire field being
| OK with it. (And, in fact, happily leaning into it - even
| Playboy thought, hey, good for name recognition, we're not
| going to enforce our copyright)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Neither the test image nor the cell line are sentient, so
| they're nothing like MMAcedevo. Literally the one thing
| that's actually ethically significant about the latter
| does not exist in the former cases. Rights to information
| derived from someone is a boring first world problem of
| bickering about "lost revenue".
| bee_rider wrote:
| IIRC Lenna doesn't want her picture used anymore because
| she was told it was making some young women in the field
| uncomfortable. I don't think she's complained about the
| revenue at all(?).
| groby_b wrote:
| Ah, I see HN is still golden with hating on women. Rock
| on with your good selves.
| mmikeff wrote:
| Just read this last night! as part of the 'Valuable Humans in
| Transit and Other Stories' collection.
| NameError wrote:
| I bought the short-story collection this is a part of and liked
| it a lot: https://qntm.org/vhitaos
|
| A lot of the stories are free to read online without buying it
| but I thought the few dollars for the ebook was worth it
| jhbadger wrote:
| And I really dig the cover design -- very much late 1960s
| "New Wave" SF vibes as if it were a collection of J.G.
| Ballard stories.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| This story closely mirrors my (foggy) memory of "2012: The War
| for Souls" by Whitley Streiber.
|
| Without giving too much away, I recalled a specific story about
| a human consciousness being enslaved in a particular way, and
| ChatGPT confirmed that it was included in the book. I don't
| _think_ it is hallucinating, as it denied that similar stories
| I derived from that memory where in the book.
| htk wrote:
| Reading mmacevedo was the only time that I actually felt dread
| related to AI. Excellent short story. Scarier in my opinion
| than the Roko's Basilisk theory that melted Yudkowsky's brain.
| digging wrote:
| > Scarier in my opinion than the Roko's Basilisk theory that
| melted Yudkowsky's brain.
|
| Is that correct? I thought the Roko's Basilisk post was just
| seen as really stupid. Agreed that "Lena" is a great,
| chilling story though.
| endtime wrote:
| It's not correct. IIRC, Eliezer was mad that someone who
| thought they'd discovered a memetic hazard would be foolish
| enough to share it, and then his response to this
| unintentionally invoked the Streisand Effect. He didn't
| think it was a serious hazard. (Something something
| precommit to not cooperating with acausal blackmail)
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _Something something precommit to not cooperating with
| acausal blackmail_
|
| Acausal is a misnomer. It's _atemporal_ , but TDT's
| atemporal blackmail requires common causation: namely,
| the mathematical truth "how would this agent behave in
| this circumstance?".
|
| So there's a simpler solution: be a human. Humans are
| incapable of simulating other agents simulating ourselves
| in the way that atemporal blackmail requires. Even if we
| _were_ , we don't understand our thought processes well
| enough to instantiate our imagined AIs in software: we
| can't even _write down_ a complete description of "that
| specific Roko's Basilisk you're imagining". The basic
| premises for TDT-style atemporal blackmail simply aren't
| there.
|
| The hypothetical future AI "being able to simulate you"
| is irrelevant. There needs to be a _bidirectional causal
| link_ between that AI 's algorithm, and your here-and-now
| decision-making process. You aren't _actually_ simulating
| the AI, only _imagining_ what might happen if it did, so
| any decision the future AI (is-the-sort-of-agent-that)
| makes _does not affect_ your current decisions. Even if
| you built Roko 's Basilisk as Roko specified it, it
| wouldn't choose to torture anyone.
|
| There is, of course, a stronger version of Roko's
| Basilisk, and one that's considerably older: evil Kantian
| ethics. See: any dictatorless dystopian society that
| harshly-punishes both deviance and non-punishment. There
| are plenty in fiction, though they don't seem to be all
| that stable in real life. (The obvious response to _that_
| idea is "don't set up a society that behaves that way".)
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Assuming the person who posted it believed that it was
| true, it was indeed hugely irresponsible to post it. But,
| then again, assuming the person who posted it believed
| that it was true, it would also be their duty, upon pain
| of eternal torture, to spread it far and wide.
| throwanem wrote:
| > precommit to not cooperating with acausal blackmail
|
| He knows that can't possibly work, right? Implicitly it
| assumes perfect invulnerability to any method of
| coercion, exploitation, subversion, or suffering that can
| be invented by an intelligence sufficiently superhuman to
| have escaped its natal light cone.
|
| There may exist forms of life in this universe for which
| such an assumption is safe. Humanity circa 2024 seems
| most unlikely to be among them.
| htk wrote:
| From Yudkowsky, according to the wikipedia article on the
| theory:
|
| "When Roko posted about the Basilisk, I very foolishly
| yelled at him, called him an idiot, and then deleted the
| post. [...] Why I yelled at Roko: Because I was caught
| flatfooted in surprise, because I was indignant to the
| point of genuine emotional shock, at the concept that
| somebody who thought they'd invented a brilliant idea that
| would cause future AIs to torture people who had the
| thought, had promptly posted it to the public Internet"[1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I also like this one: https://qntm.org/responsibility
| crummy wrote:
| If you enjoyed this story, I cannot recommend enough the video
| game SOMA, which explores the concept very effectively from a
| first person perspective (which makes it all the more
| impactful).
| Chant-I-CRW wrote:
| This could just as easily be a history short from the
| Bobiverse.
| Something1234 wrote:
| I really like his book Ra. It's a great example of secret
| societies and layers within layers. Although to me it honestly
| sounds impossible.
| bazzargh wrote:
| I really enjoyed it too, though the first half of the book is
| better than the second.
|
| I'd bought it while stuck in an airport trudging through Kim
| Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (which I hated), saw a book by
| qntm in my recommended list and bought it instantly, having
| read their online stuff. Unlike the KSR, it was great fun and I
| blazed through it.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I've read, and mostly enjoyed the experience, KSRs Mars
| Trilogy. The all-encompassing scope definitely gets tiring,
| but I found most of it interesting enough that I'd look
| forward to the evenings going to bed and reading to find out
| the next stage of the evolution of the society or
| terraforming progress or political (in)stability.
|
| I'm glad I've read it, but I doubt I'll return to it.
|
| I'll definitely be looking for this as a book gift to myself.
| ZitchDog wrote:
| I am halfway through this book and wanting to read it slower
| because it's that good. I think we could make a pretty cool AI
| powered ARG based on the lore.
| jes5199 wrote:
| this book could have been a short story
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's how it started.
| k__ wrote:
| I had the impression, it started as a bunch of loosely
| connected pages on the SCP wiki.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| This book will be a good sci-fi film ;-)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It was a great movie, though it flew over the heads of most
| viewers and got ~4/10 on Filmweb.
|
| You really don't remember it being in theatres a few years
| ago?
| petesergeant wrote:
| I enjoyed it a great deal, but it did lose its way a bit.
| Nowhere near as bad as NS's endings have become relative to
| their beginnings, but still. I actually gave up Fine Structure
| some portion in, but I'm hoping Ra will sustain. Ed was also
| excellent, but had also lost its way a little bit at the end.
| mopierotti wrote:
| I sent out about 8 copies of this book to friends/relatives for
| christmas a couple years ago, and it was very well received. It's
| not without flaws, but it's absolutely packed with novel
| concepts, relatively short, and provides a unique experience for
| unsuspecting readers. The physical book cover is quite good
| looking as well in my opinion.
|
| I also loved Ra by the same author, but it felt a little messier
| plot-wise, so I hesitate to recommend it to an audience who isn't
| already accustomed to reading "out-there" online/sci-
| fi/rationalist fiction.
| KboPAacDA3 wrote:
| The cover reminds me of John Harris's _A Dream of Starlight_.
|
| https://www.alisoneldred.com/john-harris/fine-art-prints-1/s...
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| I also came here to try and convince folks to read "Ra" which I
| thought was fantastic.
|
| Though that being said, I feel like we're flipped on which is
| more "out there" as Ra feels much less slippery of an idea.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Fine Structure too!
| robbiep wrote:
| Fine structure is great!
| LoganDark wrote:
| I love Ra. (also Fine Structure.) I don't think the plot is
| necessarily that much messier as much as it is more complex.
|
| As in, this is super mega nerd shit. Unless you can relate
| things you're reading to things you've read before, it won't
| make too much sense to you. But if you're constructing a theory
| of the book's universe and story as you read, it's downright
| addictive.
|
| I don't know where to find more books like those but I really,
| really want to.
| mopierotti wrote:
| True, perhaps "messy" was the wrong word. I think what I was
| trying to get at was that I feel "There Is No Antimemetics
| Division" is more accessible for the average reader -- More
| narrowly focused, with a more immediate hook.
|
| Regarding recommendations similar to Ra, it's not exactly the
| same thing, but https://unsongbook.com/ is fantastic and has
| a similar flavor I think.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| Unsong is one of my favorite books ever, and the newly
| released print edition has some nice changes to the "base
| model" that I enjoyed a lot. The book honestly changed the
| way I thought about religion. It's fantastic.
|
| (also, I liked Antimemetics, but not Ra, so I will just say
| I think unsong is leaps and bounds better than Ra)
| LoganDark wrote:
| > Regarding recommendations similar to Ra, it's not exactly
| the same thing, but https://unsongbook.com/ is fantastic
| and has a similar flavor I think.
|
| The religious references on the actual website (and lack of
| much real explanation) made it very difficult for me to
| give it a chance, but I looked it up a bit and it seems
| like there is more to it than that, so maybe I'll give it a
| try.
|
| edit: reading the first chapter definitely changed my first
| impression. It definitely has many similarities to qntm's
| writing. I will certainly be reading more...
| alexpotato wrote:
| I haven't read Ra but if people like a mix of magic, fantasy,
| scifi, govt techno thriller, history and even romance, I highly
| recommend the Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
|
| I think it's best read with no summary or introduction but if
| you are a Neal Stephenson fan, I think you would like it.
| Filligree wrote:
| There's no resemblance at all.
| volkk wrote:
| this book messed me up in the midst of reading it (i guess in a
| good way?). I've never had anything resembling a panic attack and
| i had to put it down and get up from the cafe that I was in and
| go for a walk. It really "incepted" me and made me question
| reality and memories. I eventually came back and finished it,
| (thought the first half was stronger than the second) and I was
| fine. I have alzheimers running in my family so I think I was a
| bit more predisposed to existential fear around memory
| galdosdi wrote:
| This is one of the many things I had in mind when I mentioned
| in another comment that this book is a metaphor for anything
| and everything. I knew someone who saw it as a metaphor for
| dealing with their past trauma and their need to "fight a war
| for survival you cannot be allowed to remember you are
| fighting"
|
| I've thought about it a lot as I've seen mental decline in my
| family too. The long goodbye. Marion Wheeler's relationship.
| Beautiful.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > "fight a war for survival you cannot be allowed to remember
| you are fighting"
|
| This is such a colossal _mood_. I have DID and it 's
| incredibly common for me to not remember trauma, but still
| somehow have to navigate life affected by it. It's really
| weird how I can know exactly what not to do without even
| knowing that I'm avoiding something, or what it is I'm
| avoiding.
| agubelu wrote:
| The concept of an antimeme has been living rent free in my head
| (which is quite ironic) ever since I first read this piece back
| then. Easily my favorite tale from the SCP universe.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I know right?
|
| Then you start wondering if you, or anybody, have forgotten
| anything so important that it would shatter your world.
|
| And would you ever know? Is there any way to ever know?
|
| What if the past changes as much as the future?
|
| What if that's the Mandela effect?
| passion__desire wrote:
| Have you seen the documentary "7 second memory man" on BBC.
|
| It is about an intelligent person who is confined to live
| with only 7 second memory. He keeps a diary recording his
| entries. As he reads past entries, he realises the
| predicament he is in and considers that his case would be
| interesting to doctors. Then forgets all about that.
| Rediscovering the whole thing again in the next 7 seconds for
| himself anew.
|
| 44:20 @ https://youtu.be/k_P7Y0-wgos
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| 7 seconds is a nightmare, barely just enough time to suffer
| in a loop.
| debo_ wrote:
| Somehow, I just managed to learn what SCP [0] is a couple of days
| ago. I've already started ~~stealing~~ working some of the ideas
| into a D&D campaign I'm running (on an improv basis.)
|
| It's neat to see that SCP also resulted in some... reasonably
| novel thinking? Thanks for sharing, I'm going to pick this up.
|
| [0] https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/
| 0x3444ac53 wrote:
| It's crazy how that works right? SCPs are an old internet thing
| and show up all over the place. Most people pay it no mind, but
| once you learn about it you realize how crazy wide spread it
| is.
| debo_ wrote:
| Yeah. I found it through playing a game called Anno
| Mutationem, and all the discussions about it kept referencing
| this SCP thing. I figured there was no way they were talking
| about secure copy, but the fact that no one ever stopped to
| unpack the acronym indicated to me that I'd missed Something
| Big On The Internet.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I was pleasantly surprised a couple of years ago, when both
| my daughters were suddenly obsessed with SCPs. They were
| about 9 and 14 at the time, and I didn't introduce them to
| the concept - they discovered it on their own.
|
| What followed was a few weeks of me re-reading them,
| discovering several new offshoots of the SCP genre, and
| getting to discover those works for the first time with my
| kids.
|
| It was an awesome experience, and something I honestly never
| expected to come out of a random "old Internet" meme like
| that. :)
| gknoy wrote:
| This is only tangentially related, but have you played the
| video game "Control"? That and Alan Wake (both from Remedy)
| seem to relate very well with the SCP genre.
| airstrike wrote:
| I just Ctrl+F'd "Control" looking for this comment...
| jerf wrote:
| You can combine all three tastes with qntm's Control X
| SCP story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31032671/cha
| pters/76659218
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| They might enjoy the webcomic 'The Repository Of Dangerous
| Things'.
|
| http://www.dangerousthings.net/ - The MC is an intern at a
| containment facility. What could go wrong?
| holman wrote:
| I discovered it literally late last night and was going to
| start reading it today. I'm not really sure what it's all about
| yet, but the fact that it's number one on HN today is making me
| feel like everything is some kind of simulation for me and me
| alone and that the answers might be in the book itself.
| dleink wrote:
| Hey, I'm feeling the same way!
|
| It is admittedly odd that I have been very online for a very
| long time and this is the first I can recall seeing this.
| astrange wrote:
| Well of course you can't recall it, it's an antimeme.
| passion__desire wrote:
| Powerlaw. Popular things are popular.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| May I suggest some to start with?
|
| Scp stories quality and style vary a lot and there are a lot
| of them. I would suggest:
|
| - SCP-096
|
| - SCP-3008
|
| - SCP-294
|
| - SCP-4666
|
| To warm you up.
| harimau777 wrote:
| Some advice for getting into the SCP stories:
|
| It's worth seeking out the "top rated pages" section of the
| wiki, especially when you are starting out. This can help
| introduce you to some of the more famous SCPs that you are
| likely to see reference elsewhere.
|
| On the other hand, one of the charming things about the SCP
| articles is just how different and weird they can be. So don't
| be afraid to just read around. For example, one of my favorites
| is a woman who basically has a portal to an entire underground
| bunker in her nostrils.
|
| The SCP wiki has resources for how to write an SCP article. A
| lot of these are EXCELLENT if you are interested in learning
| how to write weird fiction even outside of SCP (e.g. the D&D
| campaign you mentioned). For example, one of them discusses
| different ways that you can structure stories to subvert
| expectations.
|
| The video game Control is not set in the SCP universe but is
| highly influenced by it. It's a lot of fun.
|
| There are a number of SCP games available on Steam. They tend
| to have some jank due to being fan projects. However, the end
| result is often very cool. In particular, many of them have
| procedurally generated levels which works well with the wide
| variety of anomalous phenomena that they can add.
| segasaturn wrote:
| I first learned about SCP when Containment Breach was released
| in 2012 and started actively reading SCP wiki in 2014, so 10
| years ago. Its great that so many people are still discovering
| it!
| motohagiography wrote:
| where is the community of people who read books like this other
| than HN?
|
| I was reading this a few months ago but put it down because the
| language and characters clunky but I will definitely revisit it
| after this thread as the ideas are apparently worth it.
| azemetre wrote:
| Mostly reddit, twitter, discord, mastodon.
|
| There are plenty of bookclubs that read similar books too. Just
| pick a platform and search.
| archermarks wrote:
| reddit's printsf subreddit is the best place to discuss sci fi
| and fantasy imho. Low spam rate, good, in-depth discussion, and
| obscure recommendations from people who genuinely love the
| genre and aren't judgy about it.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Qntm themself used to post a bunch on everything2
|
| https://everything2.com/
|
| Also stuff like star destroyer
|
| https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewforum.php?f=54
|
| Or the sietch
|
| https://www.the-sietch.com/index.php?forums/creative-writing...
|
| Or many reddit communities like
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/
| 1-more wrote:
| Qntm is also the author of - Hatetris: Tetris where the computer
| gives you the worst possible next piece
| https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html
|
| - Absurdle: Wordle where the computer narrows down (as little as
| possible) to a solution word as you guess
| https://qntm.org/files/absurdle/absurdle.html
|
| - "All I want for Christmas is a negative leap second"
| https://qntm.org/leap
|
| - "It's probably time to stop recommending Clean Code"
| https://qntm.org/clean
|
| Interesting cat!
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I want to add the story "Lena", which has been posted here a
| couple of times as well. It's fantastic.
|
| https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
|
| A later blog post about the story:
|
| https://qntm.org/uploading
| fishtoaster wrote:
| There's also a sequel to Lena, though not for free online.
| https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1732377446576435337
| edanm wrote:
| Thank you! I had no idea and really love Lena (and much of
| qntm's other writing).
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| > So... imagine that someone enters a kitchen, because they
| want to show you how to make a cup of coffee. As you watch
| carefully, they flick a switch on the wall. The switch looks
| like a light switch, but none of the lights in the kitchen turn
| on or off. Next, they open a cabinet and take down a mug, set
| it on the worktop, and then tap it twice with a teaspoon. They
| wait for thirty seconds, and finally they reach behind the
| refrigerator, where you can't see, and pull out a different
| mug, this one full of fresh coffee.
|
| > ...What just happened? What was flicking the switch for? Was
| tapping the empty mug part of the procedure? Where did the
| coffee come from?
|
| > That's what this code is like.
|
| I hope to never write code that warrants a description half as
| scathing as this one
| a1369209993 wrote:
| I hope to write code that warrants a description at least
| twice as scathing as this one. But, you know, on purpose;
| when I'm intentionally fucking with someone. (I don't _know
| of_ Martin ever trying to claim that Clean Code was actually
| a parody or practical joke, though I 'll admit I can't rule
| it out.)
| airstrike wrote:
| Absurdle was a lot of fun! I was thinking the "share score"
| thing does show a score of "n/[?]" which I guess is supposed to
| mean the game could keep going for an indefinite length... but
| someone smarter than me can likely prove what the upper bound
| is in the general case or in the case of your opening word,
| both of which are definitely going to be lower than [?]
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I haven't read the book, just the web-page. But the concept of an
| anti-meme reminded me of something.
|
| The magicians Penn & Teller use this concept to keep their magic
| tricks safe. They've publicly said that most of their tricks
| _look_ really impressive, but once you find out how the work you
| 'll be disappointed. What people want to discover is that the
| magic trick is really an elaborate puzzle where the viewer has
| just short of enough information to figure it out. The desired
| explanation for a trick is a hair trigger piece of information
| that suddenly has it all make sense. Instead the explanations are
| really just a long sequence of boring facts. What you see is a
| facade with a bunch of mundane machinery hidden away. If anyone
| does explain the trick then by the time they're half way through
| all of the steps you've lost interest.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I read "We need to talk about Fifty-five" quite a bit ago and
| loved it but it now occurs to me wouldn't "anamnestic" be a
| better word than "mnestic"? I guess only medical students know
| "anamnesis" these days?
| jerf wrote:
| It is a play on the standard SCP term "amnestic" for a drug
| that erases memory.
|
| Which only pushes your question back one level. I've thought
| the derivation of "amnestic" is somewhat questionable before
| too. But it established itself very early. There's some other
| parts of very, very early SCP lore that are pretty
| questionable; flinging arbitrary numbers of the so-called
| "D-Class" death row inmates into the waiting maw of a cosmic
| horror has become fairly disfavored for a variety of reasons
| over time too, for instance. But it's part of the groundwork
| now.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I looked it up and I guess it has an immunology specific
| meaning which I guess I knew about in the back of my head (no
| pun intended).
| failrate wrote:
| I once tried to show a friend of mine this book on Google Read on
| my phone, but since it was Google Read, it did not actually
| display all of the titles in my library. So, the book
| "disappeared".
|
| Actual moment of panic.
| sneak wrote:
| I have the printed version of this, a paperback. It has cool
| cover art.
| _dain_ wrote:
| I don't understand. It's just a link to a blank page?
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Shout-out for "Ra" by the same author. https://a.co/d/2Q85QGD
|
| The best novel I've read in the past decade.
| dvirsky wrote:
| I actually think the ending of it really prevented it from
| being that (at least for me). It started good, then the second
| act was like "Whoah, this is the most amazing sci-fi I've ever
| read", then the third act was just all over the place and
| completely lost me. And that's the revised ending, I didn't
| read the original one.
| brookst wrote:
| Same experience. So much promise that the way it collapses is
| disappointing, almost angry-making. I even gave it a second
| try thinking that maybe I'd just missed something. Nope.
|
| Antimemetics remains a top 10 all-time though.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| A lot more people will be exposed to qntm's work now that a major
| Sci-Fi publisher has picked up rights to his work:
| https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/del-rey-snaps-up-high-c...
| simon_void wrote:
| Silence will fall when the question is asked
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| Besides passwords, I know EMDR is basically an attempt at an
| antimemetic for PTSD. However, one thing I've wondered about that
| therapy is how effective it is at also reducing the behaviors of
| PTSD.
|
| I had almost total disassociative amnesia after sexual abuse by
| an older friend in elementary school, possibly Jr High. While I
| remembered the friend, I still don't really remember the abuse
| and know about it until my parents warned me about this person
| moving back while I was in high school. However, I was still very
| sensitive regarding any nudity (even with sexual partners) and
| personal space until I spent some time with a therapist.
|
| I think the memories of the abuse were truly gone and not
| repressed, recovery of repressed memories seems to be
| pseudoscience. However, it doesn't seem implausible to lose only
| the episodic memory of the trauma.
| Centigonal wrote:
| Good Book. _Fine Structure_ by the same author is also very good.
| tnolet wrote:
| Love this book.
|
| It's also one of the most genuinely scary books I've read. There
| are some scenes in this book that really are frightening.
|
| Maybe House of Leaves is up there too.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3125 contains a fun keypad to
| reverse engineer. I thought I could simply extract the password
| from the text but the author lightly obfuscated it (which makes
| more sense knowing that he has a programming background). I
| wonder what's the intended way of finding the code -- perhaps
| it's in one of the later stories.
|
| edit: Oh, I saw it right after posting the comment. It's quite
| literally in front of your nose. Such a fun series.
| dysfunction wrote:
| This one feels especially relevant with the recent development
| about ChatGPT unintentionally cloning its user's voice:
| https://qntm.org/perso
| Nition wrote:
| Spoilers, but I'll try to phrase this vaguely:
|
| ---
|
| Near the end, I noticed one or two hints that SCP-4987 was still
| around. I thought that was going to be the key to the solution at
| the end, but the story went for the more generic option.
|
| I found a comment by QNTM that the former was actually his
| original plan[0]. Personally I actually would have preferred that
| ending but maybe that's just because I thought I'd guessed the
| twist ahead of time. The whole book is really really good.
|
| If anyone comes into this not having heard of the "SCP
| Foundation" before, imagine something a bit like the secret
| government organisation from Men In Black but instead of aliens
| it's the paranormal.
|
| [0] Major spoilers here if you haven't read the story already:
| https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-13410227/tombstone#post...
| morgango wrote:
| I really enjoyed this one. Fascinating, thought provoking work.
| patch_cable wrote:
| I'll throw in that the hardcover book is absolutely gorgeous and
| a pleasure to hold and read from.
| ThouYS wrote:
| one of the many books with a great premise, but ultimately no
| actual story
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