
Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable from Cthulhu - thenomad
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/07/any-sufficiently-advanced-tech.html
======
jaibot
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

~~~
kbenson
This exemplifies my love hate relationship with HN. I love that I now have
something new to read that is extremely interesting, but I hate that you've
just destroyed my productivity for a time span of not minutes, but hours, or
even days depending on how deep I go into this rabbit hole.

~~~
jaibot
It's been a week and you may be in danger of becoming productive again, so I
thought I'd link you to the LJ that the author kept before starting
SlateStarCodex:
[http://squid314.livejournal.com](http://squid314.livejournal.com)

You're welcome.

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QuantumRoar
"[...] in order to survive, we need to supplicate ourselves to horrible
entities whose motivations we are literally not capable of understanding."

Feels familiar. I am trying to protect my privacy to the best of my knowledge
but I feel that I'm losing it to several entities whose identities and ends
are rather... cloudy...

~~~
thenomad
Indeed so.

I feel a follow-up piece coming on entitled

"Ia, ia, Google fthagn..."

~~~
pavel_lishin
Networknomicon, the Facebook of the Dead, written by the Mad Student Mark
Zuckerberg...

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thenomad
Actually, the Facebook of the Dead is an interesting concept...

~~~
stared
People have their profiles, and then they die. It's inevitable.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _then they die. It 's inevitable._

Pessimist!

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radarsat1
The description of the genre reminded me of Cabin in the Woods.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259521/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259521/)

Is it the beginning of a geek take on horror? It was a fun film, and felt very
original when it came out, but it was also a bit of a gimmick. I'm not sure
it's ready to become an entire genre without becoming very quickly
stereotyped.

~~~
splawn
With perhaps humor being the exception, it seemed like his description of this
new genre almost summed up the themes from Frankenstein. I think horror has
always been a "geek" thing. (If that word with its modern meaning can even be
retroactively applied)

~~~
thenomad
Hmm, that's a very interesting point.

Particularly since I think the "geek" moniker could definitely be applied to
the Shelleys. Byron, less so.

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angersock
A friend presented "Reflections on Trusting Trust" this weekend, and that
right there is some downright edlritch shit:

[https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thomp...](https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf)

The C2 article on it is basically a bunch of mere mortals trying (and failing)
to come to grips with it:

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack)

~~~
kbenson
That paper has been one of my favorites since I first read it. That said,
assuming a bounded level of complexity in the bug/hack, there are ways to jump
from an infected toolchain to an uninfected toolchain, it just requires quite
a bit of effort. If you can't assume a bonded level of complexity, well, it
then becomes a debate on theology.

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nilkn
A tangent: I strongly encourage anyone who is a fan of Cthulhu, Lovecraft,
this quote, and video games to try Bloodborne for PS4. It's the best blend of
these four elements I've ever experienced, and it still sticks with me months
after I finished it.

~~~
thenomad
God dammit. OP here - I'm a huge fan of the Dark Souls games too...

But I'm trying to hold off on buying a PS4 until there's more than one game I
want to play on it.

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s_kilk
For what it's worth, I bought a PS4 solely for Bloodborne and I think it was
absolutely worth it, plus we have Dark Souls 3 coming down the pipe next year
too...

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DannoHung
Snowcrash and a bunch of Ted Chiang's works seem to be in a similar but
possibly unrelated vein.

~~~
thenomad
Huh, interesting point - I'd not considered the horrific element of Snowcrash
in the same light.

~~~
fit2rule
I'd always thought of the snow crash as Stephensons' Cthulhu ..

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arethuza
On a related note - I've thought for a while that Charlie's _Laundry_ series
would make an excellent TV series - if for no other reason than it allows me
to speculate on who could play Angleton.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I hereby posit that any choice other than Bill Nighy is a symptom of
irreparable madness.

~~~
pkinsky
I always pictured him a Peter Capaldi myself.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I've never seen him in anything (not a Dr. Who fan here)

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aaronem
You needn't be; "In the Loop" is a British political satire starring Capaldi
in, I think, one of his better roles, and besides which is a cousin of "Veep",
easily the most on-point US political satire of the last fifty years.

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qznc
Interesting. I currently fiddle around with a little game [0] to brush up my
Javascript. It is exactly about this theme: Seeking knowledge to save mankind
and Cthulhu. Alpha-quality warning!
[https://qznc.github.io/IncCth/](https://qznc.github.io/IncCth/)

[0] assuming you consider Cookie Clicker et al "games".

------
Mz
One of the common elements of the Lovecraftian Mythos is that the gods of it
_do not care_ about humans and cannot be appeased or swayed or what not.
Perhaps this isthe primary takeaway we should focus on when comparing these
vastly influential technologies and the people behind them to Cthuloid
horrors.

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0xdeadbeefbabe
> the Lovecraftian universe fits extremely well with the universe as
> understood by geeks. It's a fundementally science-driven place, where all
> magic is indeed just sufficiently advanced technology.

Call of the Cthulu starts with a shared dream, so where's the technology?
Several other stories involve dreaming too. Lovecraft is more about
programming (programming people and peoples programming) than science. Most
Lovecraft characters are introverts much like the geeks, and selfie takers of
our auspicious era (meh).

~~~
fit2rule
Is a website nothing but a shared dream?

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0xdeadbeefbabe
Are you referring to healthcare.gov and the young people who made it possible?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9857662](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9857662)

~~~
fit2rule
All literature, no matter how mundane, is a shared dream ..

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Everyone reading Tolstoy might fall asleep in boredom and share a dream?

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dllthomas
[http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/cthulhupunk](http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/cthulhupunk)

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bitwize
I'm reminded of A Study In Emerald, a Sherlock Holmes style detective story in
a Lovecraftian setting (with a licensed board game which I hear is quite
good).

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TheOtherHobbes
Is this another thread about rogue AI?

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ArkyBeagle
Apocalyptic narrative is as old as writing. Human understanding also grows
with technology - the British Empire only banned slavery around 200 years ago.

Dystopian stuff has the same problem for me as horror. All I see is Joe
Flaherty as Count Floyd saying "Oooh, scary!"

The only horror movie I ever liked was "Alien". Because it was credible.

So meh.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Yep horror is just sci-fi with an even more hackneyed magic system.

