Axiom 1: We are living in the future.

[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?

[netraven@hear-me.social]

@cstross in the future, scifi will be steampunk. Everything gets taken down a notch. Thankfully however, reality tv ceases to exist. Though the running man is real, so there's that.

[toolbear@tech.lgbt]

@Gabs
*plonk*

[bthylafh@nerdculture.de]

@cstross Don't ask a question you don't want an answer to, is my advice.

[oddhack@mstdn.social]

@cstross Bond villains believe in science. For Evil, but still actual science. Rockets, lasers, orbital docking and retrieval... we have Lysenko and Stalin cosplayers.

[janeimber@mstdn.social]

@cstross Ray Bradbury already wrote it.

#Fahrenheit451

[johannab@cosocial.ca]

@cstross
Charlie.

You called out the damned Torment Nexus, do NOT go handing them Torment 2.0, TNaaS or shit like that, mmm-kay?

I'm having enough trouble keeping the bottom-feeding slop-horrors off the café patio there at wandering.shop.

[rootwyrm@weird.autos]

@cstross you may have trouble topping my vision. *I* may have trouble.

Imagine the techbros and LLMs winning and getting their 'utopia' where people get 'paid' in 'tokens' for a chatbot eating it's own carefully reworked excretions for 10 years.

This was a REALLY bad idea to write in hindsight.