[Writingworkshop] Nature submission

[Neale Morison]

Yeah, I read the Chiang carefully again and liked it. I think I read it 
too quickly and the brief exposition in the first few paragraphs failed 
to grab me. The rules of the Predictor seemed silly. If you accept the 
rules and get on with it, the working out of the implications is nice.
One thing that struck me about it is similar to the problem I found with 
Asimov's Nightfall. The gag is that civilization collapses because of 
information - an item of knowledge arrives that is too much to handle. 
My experience of people is that incompatible knowledge doesn't bother 
them at all. It seems artificial to suggest that the implications of 
some knowledge would have a profound effect, when people are so good at 
entertaining wildly conflicting ideas without worrying in the slightest. 
I liked Nightfall a lot, and Chiang's better now, but I don't think 
seeing the stars would drive people nuts and I don't think realizing 
they lacked free will would bother people much.
As a clever proof that you can have free will or time travel but not 
both, it worked well.

Adam Holland wrote:
> Wow, I haven't read all of them, but I really like that Chiang story.
> Try to find Doctorow's "Printcrime" I am sure it is on his website.
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Neale Morison <nmorison at mit.edu 
> <mailto:nmorison at mit.edu>> wrote:
>
>     Not too fussed about some of the stories they've published so far.
>     (stuff that was published in Futures in nature:
>     http://www.concatenation.org/futuresindex.html )
>     Why are computers and nanotechnology equally boring? One we know too
>     well, the other we know not at all. Maybe it's because they both break
>     the Aristotelian rules of drama. They both permit anything to
>     happen, so
>     everything is a Deus ex Machina that robs us of tragic
>     inevitability. Or
>     maybe they're just boring.
>
>     Scores out of 10
>     Brin: 3
>     Chiang: 3
>     Eggleman: 6
>     Gee: 7
>     Gunn: 7
>     Klages: 7
>     Metzger: 7
>     Sterling: 8 sort of obvious, but seriously funny
>     Stross: 7 Nigerian scam update, not deep but cute
>
>     Any other takes?
>
>
>
>
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> -- 
> When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
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