site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2637 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 6, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Ex Nihilo, Nihil Supernum

Dr. Adat Sen has been having a bad week.

You think you have it good, after the sudden appearance of superpowers into the world revolutionizes everything. Especially when your wife is a one in a billion teleporter, it's a cushy gig right until the draft notice arrives and she's forced into a war of apocalyptic proportions under alien suns.

The same star system where, every day, hundreds of trillions of dollars and the lives of millions of normal humans and metahumans alike are destroyed in a meat grinder, barely managing to hold the line against the K3 civilization that a superpowered research experiment accidentally brought to our doorstep.

Let's not forget that his promised pay raise didn't come through, or that someone's out for him to the extent of trying to trying to fry his brain with a Basilisk hack. Who would have thought that being a a cyborg psychiatrist for the UN could be this stressful?

Then there's the matter of publish or perish, handling nasty cognitohazards on a daily basis, convincing suicidally depressed superhumans not to take everyone else with them, all while living under the shadow of the hostile advanced aliens building a Nicoll-Dyson laser in the solar system next door. Oh, and the one Superhuman AGI that humanity produced might be out to get them.

Welcome to the world of ENNS, where superheroes have actual jobs and don't run around in costumes fighting muggers, humanity faces existential threats around every corner, and Adat has the bad luck of finding himself fighting threats way above his pay grade.

It's a hard scifi novel (superpowers exempted) that takes place 20 years in the future, about 15 years from an abortive singularity where humanity noticed one of their AI ascending to ~godhood and decided the optimal course of action was to drop a 50 megaton nuclear warhead on San Francisco.

Then superpowers start showing up in a small yet seemingly random segment of the population, and while things look better for a few years, an attempt to use their abilities to create a wormhole in Alpha Centauri ends up bringing some very advanced hostile aliens to our doorstep. The protagonist is a psychiatrist working for the UN, with a stint in the US Army before the old US dissolved with California and Texas seceding (well, if your own nation drops a whole bunch of nukes on you..). Then things only get crazier.

I wrote precisely the kind of novel I want to read, for what that's worth. Can't let GPT-5 do all the work, especially given it doesn't exist.

Before I read the blurb, and even a few sentences into the blurb, I would have given low odds that it would make me want to read it*, but I was wrong. And now I'm going to try reading it.

*I'm less enthusiastic about web fiction than most of you all, especially web fiction with superheroes.

You've fallen prey to my (financially dubious) plan to write something incredibly niche and specific, but highly appealing to whoever it appeals to haha.

Let me know what you think, I quite rightly believe there's nothing quite like it!

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats