Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Mar-2025 21:11:41 JST Charlie Stross

   #WritersCoffeeClub 14: What are new themes you are currently exploring?

   The end of progress.

   Science fiction embeds the enlightenment assumption of progress and improvement—but how does that look in the indefinite future, so far out that a Soyuz capsule and a flint hand axe are of nearly identical antiquity, and scientific progress has ended so long ago that nobody even *remembers* progress being thought possible (because everything that can be known, is already known)?

   • Embed this notice
     Mark Whybird (whybird@aus.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Mar-2025 21:15:15 JST Mark Whybird

     in reply to

     @cstross The theme is reminiscent of the galactic civilisation in David Brin’s Uplift novels.

     (Until those uncultured Earthlings show up, of course.)

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Mar-2025 21:38:32 JST Charlie Stross

     • Infoseepage

     @Infoseepage I'm approaching things differently. I *am* aware of the prior art.

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Mar-2025 22:02:18 JST Charlie Stross

     • Infoseepage

     @Infoseepage I seem to recall a study that suggested the costs of large physics projects (eg. CERN, ITER) scale as the fourth power of the energies involved in the experiment. Which'd explain a lot of the post-1970s slow-down.