this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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SneerClub
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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@smiletolerantly Listen, I knew Iain—went drinking with him semi-regularly—and he despised Musk. One of his best villains, Joliet Veppers in "Surface Detail", is based on Musk.
"Veppers... is based on Musk"
If this is true, then it's a remarkable bit of SF foresight, because in 2010, Musk was nowhere near what he is now. He wasn't even in the top 100 richest. He was rich, but not even a billionaire. It was such a different time that even Jeff Bezos was just #43 in the world (this is from Forbes 2010). We didn't yet have our current technofeudalism centered on Internet tycoons; the tech tycoons in the top 10 were Bill Gates and Larry Ellison.
Regarding the main topic of this thread, I too had wondered if the name is a clue that Elon was the golden child of some secret cult of upper-class Space Nazis, their anointed one destined to realize the Iron Dream. But if one is to entertain such thoughts, you should be aware that it was also the middle name of a maternal great-grandfather, John Elon Haldeman, who was apparently a Minnesota school teacher who emigrated to Canada with his chiropractor wife.
I am delighted to hear that Veppers was literally based on Musk
a) how do I keep discovering accounts of people I admire on this platform,
b) I fucking LOVE Accelerando and the Eschaton series,
c) that... really comforts me in a strange way. I always thought Veppers was supposed to be Bezos, but this is even better.
And lastly I am sorry for the loss of your friend.
@smiletolerantly Not to worry, working on a new space opera that hopefully scratches the Banksian itch *and* sticks the knife into the TESCREAL true believers …
fuck yes. I don’t think my brain knows what to do with the happy/excited neurotransmitters that news caused it to produce
Cannot wait for it!!