Axiom 1: We are living in the future.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@graydon A corollary nobody seems to have noted is that if Soylent Green was real, it'd be an amazingly effective tool for amplifying an nvCJD pandemic.

[lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org]

@cstross Universe: "I see you're a glass-half-full kind of guy ..."

[wolf@helvede.net]

@cstross At least the past was worse.

[gyrosgeier@hachyderm.io]

@cstross Warhammer 40k already exists though, and there's a lot of chuds who think they'd be the elite soldiers, same as they think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed billionaires right now.

What we need more of is a hopeful vision of the future, one where wasting dwindling resources isn't a status symbol.

[srdas@mastodon.online]

@Illuminatus @cstross I need to reread LRH's Battlefield Earth. I remember reading that in college long long ago and it was a wild romp.
#FridayNightThought #AwesomeOrFucked

(I haven't seen the movie that came years later, don't intend to)

[mattly@hachyderm.io]

@joshsusser @cstross over a decade ago when staying in the Rioplatense area, a friend told me of the Argentinian mindset: it's all about scams, everyone's running scams constantly. When they see someone with a fancy house and car, it's not “oh they must be successful, I wonder what they do" it's “I wonder who they scammed that from"

now, I'm sure that was a bit overblown, but I've been reminded of that a lot lately

[illuminatus@mstdn.social]

@SRDas @cstross Watching the movie, at the time, was one of those 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' where it was the audience interactions and laughters at the ridiculousness of it all what made it really funny. What an utter disaster.

[dresstokilt@mastodon.social]

@cstross now come on, this is an insult to Bond villains.

[airshipper@cloudisland.nz]

@joshsusser @cstross yes, the democratization of supervillainhood, thanks to evilgpt

[funkster@mastodon.art]

@cstross
quick nod to the film Wristcutters here

[highlandlawyer@mastodon.social]

@cstross @graydon
Nah, unknown to the protagonist they were only using the meat to make SG; the brains & nervous tissue was being destructively scanned & virtually replicated to upload people-models into slave-robots.

Why else do you think the ruling classes were allowing the population to continue to increase rather than just wiping out millions of plebs to create farmland?

[wyatt_h_knott@mstdn.social]

@cstross The Bond Villains have taken over both the universe and your inner-verse? That would be worse.

[gabs@mastodonapp.uk]

@cstross all I know is the story will probably suck

[deborahh@cosocial.ca]

@cstross have you read The Caryatids, by @bruces ?

[stompyrobot@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@cstross
The nuclear winter caused by the global warming food system collapse wars will clean up the global warming!

[pionir@masto.bike]

@cstross

Accidental Utopia. By trying to control the oil, the public is galvanised into full electrification and renewable energy, heading off the climate emergency. The next couple of years sees more oil price shocks and pushes a public already softened up during Covid to the benefits of walking and cycling to "do a Dutch" globally and elect leaders that implement cycling infrastructure and livable streets. A sense of community returns and the fascist tech bros are put to bed. The end.

[mspong@mastodon.social]

@cstross Ambient, Jack Womack

[synlogic4242@social.vivaldi.net]

@cstross back in 2023 or so I started to make a computer game set in a future dystopia and post-apoc US circa 2100 CE. in my fictional future timeline for it I made it assume that in the Nov 2024 US Pres election a certain specific candidate won, and that once assumed powers of office began executing on a plan to... well, lets just say to worsen things, both in US and worldwide, by intent.

Thankfully that did not end up happening for real.

*cough*

Because that would be... bad. Really got lucky, oh man. Close one!

*cough*

loltears

[jimfl@hachyderm.io]

@cstross Suckharderando

[garthvanspencer@mastodon.social]

@cstross - There is supposed to be a saying attributed to the Buddha, amounting to saying there will be an age of things getting a lot worse, and then there will be an age of things getting steadily better. How valid is that, or how long are the ages we might expect?