u/mika_builds

I often think back to the famous 2021 tweet that added the fantastic “Torment Nexus” to our collective vocabulary. For those living under a rock, it jokes about how the best science fiction warns us about building awful futures, and tech companies (a self-proclaimed visionary at Silicon Valley, usually) ignore the warning for the profit.

I recently read a book that imagines a Torment Nexus that is much less in-your-face than the sci-fi fare we’ve come to expect. It’s called Maya: Seed Takes Root (which I’d backed on Kickstarter). At its heart is a biological singularity. Picture a network of millions of trees across the planet that every living person connects to regularly. It’s kind of like a biological VR internet where people tether to play, escape, and basically simulate anything their hearts desire.

What isn’t immediately obvious to the people is that the trees are also a humongous data server. They record every thought, desire, secret of everybody who tethers. And once a system has complete data on everybody alive, it becomes a single point of control. In this book, the people in control are a small ruling class obsessed with longevity, projections, and innovation. I don’t think it’s any accident that they resemble the entrepreneurs and capital managers of Silicon Valley.

The ruling class uses data, freely harvested by millions, to predict the future. And once it is measured, it can be managed.

Naturally, this got me thinking about our own world. The machine already exists. In fact, there are hundreds, but they aren’t branded as a Torment Nexus ™. We eagerly hand over our data to every product we touch. Google knows which bistro sandwich gives you indigestion. Amazon knows how much closet space you have left. How many companies know you better than your loved ones?

So I suppose the only question that matters is: is it worth it? Is it a good bargain? Do the Torment Nexuses of our world give us as much as they extract? Because if they allowed us to live out everything our hearts desired, perhaps that would at least be worth it. 

What do you all think?

I personally think Stanislaw Lem, Ursula K. Le Guin, and William Gibson to be the ones exploring similar concepts and also write in a similar. The ‘feeling’ I get reading their work is quite similar to Philip’s.

Small book, finished it in a day. An unnamed narrator attempts to track down a woman he once nearly married, now white-haired, silent, broken, married to someone else.. Meanwhile a global disaster is occurring. Walls of ice are spreading from the poles, engulfing countries. He follows her through an ending world.

She dies in one chapter, and appears again in the next, but it’s not explained. The narrator appears to be in one country, and then, mid-paragraph, inside her head as she's being attacked hundreds of miles away. 

Afterward, I read about Anna Kavan and learned that she was a heroin addict for more than 30 years. She spent long periods in asylums, and formally changed her name to a character from one of her own stories. She died the year after the book was published. Still had heroin in her system.

I’m curious to know if anyone has read the book. And if you've read Kavan's other stuff, where should I go next?

I have this thing that has been on my mind for a long time. Please let me know if any of you can help me with this or not.

Back in art school, one of my first assignments was to go find a plant and make a sketch of it. But before I made the sketch, I was supposed to sit with the plant and talk to it for a while. It was a pretentious task that we initially laughed at, but then I found my plant, sat in silence, and, I kid you not, it felt like it talked back to me.

It was not really a conversation. It was more like a serene calm that spread through me as I sat there in the compound, staring at this little thing I had in my hand. It was growing out of a coconut shell, just a small sapling. It was one of the pivotal moments in school that made me feel maybe I did belong there.

The purpose of the assignment was to teach us that you need to understand the subject before you sketch it. That the only way to put the essence of your subject on paper through sketching is by knowing it, by having a conversation with it. That idea has really stayed with me all my life. It is something I intuitively do every time I create any piece of art..

The plant was growing in half a coconut shell. It was no more than a foot tall. It had a thick green stem and only a handful of leaves. The leaves were broad, dark green, and oval. The leaves were glossy, almost like they had been waxed. They felt thick and sturdy compared to most plants. I also remember the newer leaves emerged tightly rolled up. It wasn't flowering, and there was nothing especially colorful about it. 

I did sketch that plant, but the sketch was lost while shifting places over the years. What remains is a vague description in my head.

Does this sound like any particular plant to anyone? Or is this description too vague?

Location: NYC

Ursula was a big fan of Tolkien. But the interesting thing is what she actually said about him, vis-a-vis 'ideology'.

"No ideologues, not even religious ones, are going to be happy with Tolkien, unless they manage it by misreading him."

And:

"Like all great artists he escapes ideology."

I just finished reading The Word For World Is Forest, and although there were some interesting insights, the ideology was clearly visible, and was even the driving factor at times.

She herself later said that writing it became a preachment, as if taking dictation from a boss with ulcers.

But sometimes I wonder whether having the ideology front and center is even a bad thing at all? I would much rather have that than have the insights fly over people's heads, even if the reading experience takes a hit.