thoughts and opinions by author s. andrew swann
S Andrew Swann | March 10, 2009
A comment responding to my Big Idea post on Whatever led me to thinking about the sfnal concept of the Singularity. It seems quite popular to dis the concept. in fact, outside some Transhumanist circles, it seems that twice as many electrons are used on the interwebs to dismiss the concept than are used to [...]
S Andrew Swann | November 4, 2008
Today, thank whatever deity you might fancy, it will be over. At the moment, it looks as if Obama is the favorite. I thought I might list a couple of things I see as possible side effects of an Obama victory. (Sans gnashing teeth or messianic glee.) Those who have a vested interest in the [...]
S Andrew Swann | October 2, 2008
There’s a bias in SF and its brethren such as alternate history to do world building around the big ass stuff; wars, revolutions, catastrophes. Or, for the sciencey mindset, the big ass discoveries that change our understanding of cosmology or fundamental physics, or some sort of massive engineering or computing breakthrough that has us uploading [...]
S Andrew Swann | June 28, 2008
Historically, almost every significant economic crash has been due to one factor of the human psyche, the inability to conceive of change. Not adapt to change; we’re pretty damn good at figuring things out after the fact. Beforehand? Not so much. Entire industries collapse because of the assumption that the fourth quarter will be exactly [...]
S Andrew Swann | April 18, 2008
Just saw an interesting post on The Feminist SF Blog that draws attention to one of those little cultural blind spots that are really useful in worldbuilding. You know, the kind of thing everyone takes for granted, so when they read about another culture (real or fictional) that does it differently they’re all like “whoa.” [...]
S Andrew Swann | February 13, 2008
I’ve gone on at length about the replicator economy, what will happen to commerce as the cost of “stuff” goes to zero and the ability to copy anything becomes ubiquitous. Understanding the implications of this is going to make the difference between success and failure for whole industries. It also will help in drafting a [...]
S Andrew Swann | November 4, 2007
. . .and provides an example of a point I was making over ten years ago. You may or may not have visited my home page, which predates this blog by about a dozen years or so, if you have, buried in the writing portion are a couple of essays I did on plot and [...]
S Andrew Swann | October 31, 2007
L. E. Modesitt, Jr. wrote a long post on his blog on why he believes the singularity won’t happen. [via SF Signal] According to Modesitt, it won’t happen because such visions are based on technology, not on humanity and they’re based on a western European/North American cultural chauvinism. He goes on to explain: One of [...]
S Andrew Swann | October 11, 2007
According to The Guardian, ye olde brick-and-mortar bookstore is not long for this world. According to a survey at the Frankfurt Book fair [from SF Signal]: Almost a quarter of the 1,324 industry professionals who took part in the survey predicted that the high street bookseller would no longer exist in 2057 while only 11% [...]
S Andrew Swann | August 10, 2007
Lois Tilton over at Deep Genre doesn’t like Libertarian SF, at least some Libertarian meme she sees as infecting some SF. In a nutshell her main complaint seems to be with the idea that space would be more “free” (meaning absence of regulation) when she sees the scarcity of resources (such as air) resulting in [...]
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