Sympathy for Luddites

Social media creates an illusion that the world is wrapped in layers of information. We start to think and act in accordance with the idea that reality involves posting photos of ourselves, seeing what our friends did on holiday and writing about what we’re thinking. When we abstain from doing this after some years, the world feels like a claustrophobic dream in which everything that happens takes place inside your mind alone, an exhilarating thought that this and only this is your life.

Carrying the world-as-information in our pockets, it’s tempting to believe that what we experience when we watch a sunset or listen to birds arguing in treetops is only part of reality. The other part, we assume, is the part that can be quantified digitally and reproduced. However, these reproductions are a shadow cast by something no longer there.… Continue reading...

Technicalities: a sci-fi story

I’d like to offer something different for your reading pleasure: a sci-fi short set in a bleak colonial future. Merry Christmas!


Technicalities

I joined the mechanised division in 2505 after graduating with a 412.3/1 kill average. My first co-pilot was a greyhair named Johnson. She’d been planetside for too long. She mumbled to herself and her kill ratio had dropped to 214.9/1.

Our assignment was cleaning up a regressed colony in a spiral arm of Andromeda. It was dull – like pouring boiling water over ants every day. We’re supposed to supervise the targeting systems, select the lethality of response, and make decisions about terrain and weather. The AI was programmed on a peacekeeping routine but Sarge taught us you could complete the mission faster if you maxed out the damage detectors’ sensitivity.… Continue reading...

The faint blue glow of friendship

As we declutter our house prior to the big move, it’s been interesting to question what I need in my life. This doesn’t just apply to material stuff, of course, but other kinds of stuff too. For example: how I spend my time (temporal stuff). Unfortunately, it turns out that much of my temporal stuff is expended on digital stuff. So I began to think about whether I could slim down or prioritise my commitments to the internet.

It’s surprising how many people I’ve agreed to ‘follow’, how many marketing emails I’ve neglected to unsubscribe from, how many services I have an account for and have never found useful. Hey, it’s all free. Then, yesterday, I deleted TweetDeck and a shiver went through me.… Continue reading...