Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. โค๏ธ

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

๐Ÿ”  ๐Ÿ’€  ๐Ÿ“ธ  ๐Ÿ˜ญ  ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ  ๐Ÿค   ๐ŸŽฌ  ๐Ÿฅ”

Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real. “Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus.”

Discussion  1 comment

Tra H
๐Ÿ• ๐Ÿคฏ โญ๏ธ  comment

I'm going to plug Meghan O'Gieblyn's God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning again. It's a book-length version of Stross's article focusing on the "theological" part of his quote:

Underpinning visions of space colonies, immortality and technological apotheosis, TESCREAL is essentially a theological program, one meant to festoon its high priests with riches.

O'Gieblyn was born in a religious household and went to seminary then became dilussioned and became a tech-writer only to find the techno-capitalists were just repackaging religion in some of these wild undertakings. It meanders a bit with her personal story and I think when I first read I thought it was just OK but as time has gone on I find myself revisiting the book more and more.

Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.

Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.

Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!