Remember the good old days, when you and your transhumanist mates could amicably disagree on such pressing topics as the name of your crypto-currency, the ocean your data haven nano-atoll would float on, and whether or not you’d let your other post-singularity instantiations join a hive-mind? These days, that precious techno-consensus has shattered. Brother against brother, Stross against Raymond; people don’t even agree which Political Compass quiz to take any more. We’re still trying to map out this new reality (so much more tedious than the new realities we thought we'd have by now). But an announcement this week seemed to peg out the scale a little for us: the techno-libertarian Cato Institute arguing with techno-socialist Bill Thompson over whether Google should be a public utility. As diverse a viewpoint as you could muster, and just as realistic a discussion as those “what colour will you dye your solar system” chats we had all those years ago.

——NTK, 11/21/03

As a science fiction writer, I have to say I’m mighty relieved to see the Wired magazine egoistic extropian consensus future breaking down. All that eschatological rigor was really harshing my mellow.

(Courtesy of Bruce Sterling again.)