Ryan

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• Commented on Short Story: Bit Rot
  Very enjoyable :) I'm looking forward to reading Neptunes Brood in a few weeks....
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Glasshouse
  It's a shame there probably wont be a sequel however the thing I liked most about Glasshouse might not have carried over anyway; namely the exploration of oppression being created by the system rather than individuals within it. If it...
• Commented on Neptune's Brood: an excerpt
  You're sidestepping your own argument there by cherry picking a few examples. A special needs patient may not respect my right not be subjected to physical violence but that doesn't give me the right to use the same physical violence...
• Commented on Neptune's Brood: an excerpt
  Also great read Charlie! Looking forward to reading the rest. Really keen to find out more about slow, medium and fast money......
• Commented on Neptune's Brood: an excerpt
  Riiiiiiiight. You realise this would lump in children, special needs patients, dementia sufferers etc as well?...
• Commented on The Northern Wild: How to Save New York?
  As other's have pointed out cities are more efficient than other configurations. They can also be more environmentally friendly as the population density leaves more land space free (IIRC London is 8 times more dense than the UK average). Aside...
• Commented on Crib sheet: Accelerando
  Bacteria and insects still exist because: 1) It's beyond our ability to destroy them 2) They are critical to our survival 3) We have no reason to make them extinct In accelerando humans, and all terrestrial life for that matter,...
• Commented on Crib sheet: Accelerando
  Whilst the VO aren't directly hunting down humans it seems to be similar to the way we treat animals and habitats: live and let live until they're in the way, then they die. Humans living on Earth were fine up...
• Commented on Crib sheet: Accelerando
  An irreversible change, past which one cannot go back. Well, certainly the adaptation to Agriculture fits that one ( & so, I think, do the others, actually ) I'm not sure I understand, we could give up agriculture. The vast...
• Commented on Crib sheet: Accelerando
  Greg @86 I see your point but I agree with Bellingham @88. Singularity could be defined as an event/series of events beyond which all predictions break down but that doesn't seem a very useful definition. We'd be in a constant...
• Commented on Crib sheet: Accelerando
  Those humans who didn't get off the planet or upload their minds ("Accelerando" takes a rather naively can-do approach to uploading) are dead Would I be right in interpreting that even those that did upload were pretty much dead in...
• Commented on Crib sheet: Accelerando
  Having discussed the novel with a few folk over the years both on- and offline I'm somewhat bemused by the number of people who seem to miss that. There were people who missed it? That was the most obvious and...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Iron Sunrise
  I think the worst aspect of u-surv society is that it panders to the worst instincts of the instinctive social organizers among us -- the people who are only happy if they're enforcing restrictions on other peoples' permitted behaviour (be...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Iron Sunrise
  That's the exact type of process that I worry will lead western democracies into post-democratic states. We'll have elected governments but they'll be so disempowered and wrapped up in contracts that they'll have very little capability for protecting the people...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Iron Sunrise
  Everyone will be guilty of something; "they" can just pick anything at random and use it to yank your chain If things were to come to pass as you say then IMO "they" are likely to be private agencies rather...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Iron Sunrise
  There's a bigger problem, which is that there's no conceivable way to pay to punish all the crimes committed I agree. The most that could be done is some sort of automatic fine feature based on biometric identification but that...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Iron Sunrise
  Some things will be accepted. Other will just have to go. Like littering. It is easy now because no one sees you, but once you start to get fined for every piece of paper you drop, you'll stop it pretty...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Iron Sunrise
  all a universal memory means is that we'll all end up living in a global small town where everyone knows every single way we've screwed up for our entire lives, and our history as imperfect, too-well known people will inhibir...
• Commented on The language of alienation
  Obvious example lf 2013 phrase not understandable in 2003: two and a half years on what can we predict for the future of the Arab Spring? Predictable 2023 phrase understandable in 2013: as growth forecasts were revised down again today...
• Commented on Minor hiccup
  Are the British really that squeaky clean and moral in the books? Given what Angleton is and that scene where it's implied he murdered a bunch of staff and turned them into shrunken heads I'm not seeing them as much...
• Commented on Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament
  Because to not retaliate creates a world in which there is a real, genuine, historical example of a country not retaliating when attacked with nuclear weapons. Those retaliating wouldn't be helping themselves, but may well be saving many others in...
• Commented on Mitochondrial Singularity
  No offence intended by the way...
• Commented on Mitochondrial Singularity
  There are many reasons why possible things aren't done and many examples. I don't see why people hold your belief up to be some kind of natural law rather than a semi-wishful point of ideology. It would be more intellectually...
• Commented on Mitochondrial Singularity
  To add to Heteromeles's post: I work in regenerative medicine and I'm very optimistic about this fields potential to radically improve quality of life in the future. But I'm not optimistic to the point that I think the future will...
• Commented on The permanent revolution
  I have less of a problem with "technological progress happens" stated as a natural law as I do with it offered to justify the claim that X will happen. It seems a lot of the time conversations go like this:...
• Commented on Why I don't self-publish
  I've a nasty feeling that "good enough" books are going to become more profitable. The newer technologies help "good enough" books more than they help "good books", and that's going to do nasty things to the marketplace. I thankfully don't...
• Commented on Why I don't self-publish
  Here's how you make it faster. You turn down the quality dial. Given that this blog article highlights that post-writing work takes up 33% of the total time is it really worth it to give this all up? You might...
• Commented on Why I don't self-publish
  "you're a writer, eh? I'm going to write a novel one of these days, too," You can probably add to that fallacies of "you're an editor/proof reader/marketer, eh? I can format a word doc, do a spell check and post...
• Commented on Why I don't self-publish
  This comment isn't directed at anyone in particular but I find it interesting that in this discussion and others there are so many who absolutely insist that there must be a faster and more profitable way of writing books,...
• Commented on Why I don't self-publish
  I agree with David L @54. I'd wager that most people who buy books never or very rarely think of the % the author makes on a sale. Let alone feel like they should do something about it by shopping...