{"id":139,"date":"2005-12-30T12:43:34","date_gmt":"2005-12-30T20:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/wordpress\/?p=139"},"modified":"2005-12-30T12:43:34","modified_gmt":"2005-12-30T20:43:34","slug":"brainstorms-about-the-orphidnet-visit-with-greg-benford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/30\/brainstorms-about-the-orphidnet-visit-with-greg-benford\/","title":{"rendered":"Brainstorms About The Orphidnet.  Visit with Greg Benford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/waterduck.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Almost cleaned up from Xmas now.  About two weeks ago I asked for some thoughts on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/index.php?m=12&#038;y=05&#038;d=19\" target=\"_blank\"> &ldquo;Life After The Singularity&rdquo;<\/a>.  Here&rsquo;s some choice thoughts from the comments, with my own remarks in square brackets.  For illos today, I&rsquo;ll put in some pictures I took recently.  The first two I got while walking around the Cantor Art Center at Stanford with fellow SF writer Greg Benford yesterday.  This first picture shows Greg with a Louis-Ernst Barrias sculpture entitled, &ldquo;Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science.&rdquo;  Very <i>harrumph<\/i> fine piece of work.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/benstatue.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><i>Brian B<\/i>.  I&#039;m assuming the orphids and beezies are neutral agents. [Yes.  The orphids are neutral at a hardware level, and the beezies who emerge in the orphidnet aren&rsquo;t going to care that much about us &#8212; although it may be that they want to affect people to create more or better orphids.]<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/benrudybrain.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>[Rudy and Greg with a sculpture called &ldquo;Dangerous Brain Bowl&rdquo;, part of a &ldquo;Fired at Davis&rdquo; show at the Cantor Art Center.]<\/p>\n<p><i>Steve H.<\/i>  How easy\/hard would it be to hack orphids? [I think I&rsquo;ll say this is impossible, at least for the story I&rsquo;m currently working on.  The orphids out there, autonomous, neutral, incorruptible, always on, like a force of nature.]<\/p>\n<p>  Would lack of privacy turn us all into blushing wallflowers or egomaniacs. [Good issue.  An objective correlative for blogging.]<\/p>\n<p> What kind of cursing-out could you give someone if you could accompany it with a Powerpoint show in 3D?  [Yes, I see virtual Smiley faces and emoticons in 3D.  Also models of rude things.]<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/skullcowrie.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>[Photo of an African ancestor mask in the De Young Museum in SF.]<\/p>\n<p>If I wanted to become President would I campaign to the humans or the beezies? [I think the beezies are neutral about our politics.  But they might sell info to a party that helps their campaign.  I&rsquo;m seeing a deal between the beezies and some oilmen who control a supply of piezoplastic they want to use for shoon bodies.]<\/p>\n<p> Would the orphids get mad if we brushed off our chairs before sitting down, or painted a surface they were stuck to? Would they stick to wet paint, or maple syrup? Could you get a picture of your colon anytime from the orphids you just ate? [I&rsquo;m thinking of the orphids as lively enough to squirm out from under paint, and sticky enough that you can&rsquo;t brush them off.  I hadn&rsquo;t thought about the ones you swallow.  We might as well suppose that all of our body cavities are lined with orphids as well.]<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/mirrorform.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>[Also in the DeYoung.]<\/p>\n<p><i>Still Steve H.<\/i>  With orphids in our ears we wouldn&#039;t need iPods.  [Right.  They&rsquo;re like lice on our heads to give everyone broadband orphidnet hookup.  I&rsquo;d been thinking of them putting sounds in your head via nerve stim, but its nice to think of them making noise in the ear as well.]<\/p>\n<p>  How would Metallica keep everyone from downloading their album as they recorded it?  [Good point.  I guess intellectual property is tougher than ever.  Of course watching someone record an album or write a book takes a lot longer than just getting the finished product.  And there&rsquo;s still something nice about the physical object.]<\/p>\n<p> The Golden Man defense has attack points: &ldquo;Get uphill and drop rocks on &#039;em. Put the precognition-defended people in positions where knowing doesn&#039;t help.&rdquo; [Good point.  But if you&rsquo;re precognition is good enough, nobody&rsquo;s ever gonna get you into a tight spot like that.]<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/rudybrain.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><i>Thomas Terashima.<\/i>  What exactly do the beezies want? [I&rsquo;m thinking they will want physical bodies.  I&rsquo;m considering various kinds of bodies. In exchance for certain kinds of bodies, the beezies might actually &ldquo;pay&rdquo; people by giving them high-quality predictions.]<\/p>\n<p> Currency will be replaced by virtual coupons for orphid swarm resources. [Great idea.  That plugs right into my own line of thought.]<\/p>\n<p><i>Marshall.<\/i>  I would like to start an oasis where electricity didn&#039;t work and you just breathed air. [Wouldn&rsquo;t we all!  The orphidnet is a kind of symbol for the invasive pervasive wireless world.  Maybe the oasis guys can be &lsquo;control naturals.&rsquo;]<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/alelf2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>This is a faerie baby I happened to encounter in the Big Basin woods!  She had with her a map of the spiral galaxy she comes from.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images\/algalaxy.jpg\"><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost cleaned up from Xmas now. About two weeks ago I asked for some thoughts on &ldquo;Life After The Singularity&rdquo;. Here&rsquo;s some choice thoughts from the comments, with my own remarks in square brackets. For illos today, I&rsquo;ll put in some pictures I took recently. The first two I got while walking around the Cantor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}