That was a great story, thanks for sharing. I love how the voice of the article sounds exactly like I’d expect from the kind of article we might read today. It reminded me a little of the 1972 “Lenna image” of Lena Forsén in Playboy that was frequently used for illustrating image processing algorithms (a practice that is now banned in most relevant journals.
I also liked how the story mentioned fiction about brain uploading. That was very meta, and I enjoyed it to an unreasonable degree.
Oh! I bet that’s where the name of the thing comes from! If you go back into the link, Lena is at the top of the page, and the original draft shared the name.
This is brilliant. It reminds of those asklemmy questions, “If you could Google one thing from the future”, or in this case read one Wikipedia page from the future. Obviously I wouldn’t know to find this page, but it reads about a world I, living now, don’t understand.
Great story, I thought of this too. What I like about this story is that so much of the horror is implied.
excerpt
MMAcevedo’s demeanour and attitude contrast starkly with those of nearly all other uploads taken of modern adult humans, most of which boot into a state of disorientation which is quickly replaced by terror and extreme panic. Standard procedures for securing the upload’s cooperation such as red-washing, blue-washing, and use of the Objective Statement Protocols are unnecessary. This reduces the necessary computational load required in fast-forwarding the upload through a cooperation protocol
…
MMAcevedo develops early-onset dementia at the age of 59 with ideal care, but is prone to a slew of more serious mental illnesses within a matter of 1–2 subjective years under heavier workloads. In experiments, the longest-lived MMAcevedo underwent brain death due to entropy increase at a subjective age of 145.
…
Towards the end of his life, as it became possible to run simulated humans in banks of millions at hundred-fold time compression, Acevedo indicated that being uploaded had been the greatest mistake of his life, and expressed a wish to permanently delete all copies of MMAcevedo.
!I agree. I think the technical tone of the story was great for keeping that eerie distance that makes the reader do the work of understanding the horror.
I found the time bit most creepy. When it first mentions about telling him what date it was, I felt unnerved because at that point, I had no way to know how long after the initial upload this piece was written from, in narrative. The sense of disorientation from this made me empathise even harder with MMAcevedo.
I think probably the part I found most horrifying was the bit discussing the kinds of work that MMAcevedo is useful for. I know a lot of people who work in research — enough that I know that academic nerds like Acevedo tend to find menial, repetitive work that doesn’t engage their brains to be especially soul destroying. But I suppose that’s the benefit of MMAcevedo right? No need to worry about destroying a person’s soul if they’re not a person, and they (are legally considered to) lack a soul. !<
No idea on the naming, I haven’t really looked into the author or their writing beyond this tbh. However if you click on the links at the top, it takes you through more of their work and author info, it might be buried there somewhere.
And the spoiler request is just because it’s really not that long and those are the juicy bits ;) I think it’s way more impactful inside the greater context, but I mean maybe I’m wrong on that, and have weird preferences.
Whenever I see this post, I think of this short story. I don’t see it linked here yet, so here ya go.
https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
(Wrong copy linked, updated)
That was a great story, thanks for sharing. I love how the voice of the article sounds exactly like I’d expect from the kind of article we might read today. It reminded me a little of the 1972 “Lenna image” of Lena Forsén in Playboy that was frequently used for illustrating image processing algorithms (a practice that is now banned in most relevant journals.
I also liked how the story mentioned fiction about brain uploading. That was very meta, and I enjoyed it to an unreasonable degree.
Oh! I bet that’s where the name of the thing comes from! If you go back into the link, Lena is at the top of the page, and the original draft shared the name.
Thanks for that added context!
This is brilliant. It reminds of those asklemmy questions, “If you could Google one thing from the future”, or in this case read one Wikipedia page from the future. Obviously I wouldn’t know to find this page, but it reads about a world I, living now, don’t understand.
ah sweet man made horrors beyond my understanding
Oh my God that is horrifying. Reminds me of “I have no mouth and I must scream”
Great story, I thought of this too. What I like about this story is that so much of the horror is implied.
excerpt
I found the time bit most creepy. When it first mentions about telling him what date it was, I felt unnerved because at that point, I had no way to know how long after the initial upload this piece was written from, in narrative. The sense of disorientation from this made me empathise even harder with MMAcevedo.
I think probably the part I found most horrifying was the bit discussing the kinds of work that MMAcevedo is useful for. I know a lot of people who work in research — enough that I know that academic nerds like Acevedo tend to find menial, repetitive work that doesn’t engage their brains to be especially soul destroying. But I suppose that’s the benefit of MMAcevedo right? No need to worry about destroying a person’s soul if they’re not a person, and they (are legally considered to) lack a soul. !<
You should put that in a spoiler tag :)
Really? OK… btw any idea why it’s called “Lena”?
Another comment gave probable context for that :)
https://slrpnk.net/comment/19387527
ooh that makes sense, thanks!
No idea on the naming, I haven’t really looked into the author or their writing beyond this tbh. However if you click on the links at the top, it takes you through more of their work and author info, it might be buried there somewhere.
And the spoiler request is just because it’s really not that long and those are the juicy bits ;) I think it’s way more impactful inside the greater context, but I mean maybe I’m wrong on that, and have weird preferences.
Man, that was a depressing reading
It is. If you like the concept though, the animated show Pantheon starts similarly, but goes an entirely different depressing direction :)
I disagree,
Pantheon
I think Pantheon goes in a very pleasant and inspiring direction. After going in a depressing direction first of course
So, it’s Gray Matters with more computers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Matters_(novel)
I’ve not read it; any good?
It’s definitely of its era, and I’d describe it more as memorable than good. I think it was a stylistic exercise by the author.