Transform resonates with me. Society already has a firm foothold here from hedonism. As weird as the last decade has been, an even weirder future would not be a surprise.
Ever since reading New York 2140 I’ve been making notes on a project I call Kisangani 2150. The idea is to take the world Robinson created in NY2140, run it ahead 10 years, and focus on Kisangani. Kisangani is in the Congo at the place where Conrad’s Inner Station was located. Basically, Stanleyville.
I’m imagining a very specific connection between NY2140 and K2150. As you recall, one of the settings for NY2140 was a nightclub called Mezzrow’s. Though I don’t think Robinson explained the significance of that name, I assume he’s alluding to Mezz Mezzrow, a minor figure in the mid-20th century jazz scene best known for supplying marijuana to the musicians. He was also a musician and helped put together recording sessions. Anyhow at the very end of the book some of our heroes go to Mezz’s and dance to the tightest West African music anyone ever heard. Well, the world of NY2140 couldn’t have functioned if there weren't a lot of clubs like that (just as there are in our world). They provide essential social glue and breathing room. It’s just that they were peripheral to Robinson. Not so in K2150.
The way it looks to me, the world of K2150 combines two of your scenarios: Discipline and Transformation. The New York world is already deep in the Discipline regime. All those supertall buildings and the floating villages, they’re the AI adopters. The Anti-AI people inhabit the liminal zones (I forget what Robinson called them).
But Transformation is underway in the Kisangani world. But they’ve adopted a different style of AI tech. Not the resource-intensive tech of the New York world, which is an extension of the current scale-is-all regime. While scale doesn’t turn out to be all, it does quite a bit, enough that it dominates. The Transformers, however, go another way, in part because they can’t afford the BIG TECH, but also they’re not wedded to that worldview. They a adopt a more organic approach (I can probably dream up technical details, but not here; you can find some of them here: https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/BillBenzon/Cognitive-Science-and-Psych). Kisangani emerges as a receiving place for fugitive “organics” from all over, including China, Japan, and India.
I don’t remember the “Down and Out” story, so I can’t answer except to say that they’re in the Discipline part of this imagined future. Whatever’s going on in Kisangani has roots extending way far back into the past, even before the deluges.
Right now there are centers of AI development in sub-Saharan African that aren’t in South Africa. I don’t know what’s going on there. But, who knows, if those DeepSeek hedge funders start getting frisky and Xi comes down on them, maybe some of them escape to Kisangani and bring their tech with them. Maybe we’re only a decade or three away from some Wakanda action in the Congo, and it’s going to keep itself hidden away from the high tower oligarchs, no?
Sure, develop away. Do you might if I upload your post to the Kisangani 2150 project I’m currently running on Claude 3.5? I will of course cite you if and when the time comes.
Transform resonates with me. Society already has a firm foothold here from hedonism. As weird as the last decade has been, an even weirder future would not be a surprise.
That's what I'm leaning towards, myself, but don't count out the others yet.
Can you say more about hedonism in this context?
Very interesting Bryan.
Ever since reading New York 2140 I’ve been making notes on a project I call Kisangani 2150. The idea is to take the world Robinson created in NY2140, run it ahead 10 years, and focus on Kisangani. Kisangani is in the Congo at the place where Conrad’s Inner Station was located. Basically, Stanleyville.
I’m imagining a very specific connection between NY2140 and K2150. As you recall, one of the settings for NY2140 was a nightclub called Mezzrow’s. Though I don’t think Robinson explained the significance of that name, I assume he’s alluding to Mezz Mezzrow, a minor figure in the mid-20th century jazz scene best known for supplying marijuana to the musicians. He was also a musician and helped put together recording sessions. Anyhow at the very end of the book some of our heroes go to Mezz’s and dance to the tightest West African music anyone ever heard. Well, the world of NY2140 couldn’t have functioned if there weren't a lot of clubs like that (just as there are in our world). They provide essential social glue and breathing room. It’s just that they were peripheral to Robinson. Not so in K2150.
The way it looks to me, the world of K2150 combines two of your scenarios: Discipline and Transformation. The New York world is already deep in the Discipline regime. All those supertall buildings and the floating villages, they’re the AI adopters. The Anti-AI people inhabit the liminal zones (I forget what Robinson called them).
But Transformation is underway in the Kisangani world. But they’ve adopted a different style of AI tech. Not the resource-intensive tech of the New York world, which is an extension of the current scale-is-all regime. While scale doesn’t turn out to be all, it does quite a bit, enough that it dominates. The Transformers, however, go another way, in part because they can’t afford the BIG TECH, but also they’re not wedded to that worldview. They a adopt a more organic approach (I can probably dream up technical details, but not here; you can find some of them here: https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/BillBenzon/Cognitive-Science-and-Psych). Kisangani emerges as a receiving place for fugitive “organics” from all over, including China, Japan, and India.
Of course, there’s nothing predictive about this. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about. I may use some version of it for the final chapter of a book I’m planning with a tentative title: Welcome to the Fourth Arena, which is an amplification of this article: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2022/06/welcome-to-the-fourth-arena-the-world-is-gifted.html.
Bill, I do remember that club from that novel and concur on the source of its name.
Transformers is also a fine name with several puns, not least the one from GP*T*. Might I develop this idea, citing yourself?
Now, how will they escape the problems besetting Stan Robinson's would-be cyberpunks in his "Down and Out" story?
I don’t remember the “Down and Out” story, so I can’t answer except to say that they’re in the Discipline part of this imagined future. Whatever’s going on in Kisangani has roots extending way far back into the past, even before the deluges.
Right now there are centers of AI development in sub-Saharan African that aren’t in South Africa. I don’t know what’s going on there. But, who knows, if those DeepSeek hedge funders start getting frisky and Xi comes down on them, maybe some of them escape to Kisangani and bring their tech with them. Maybe we’re only a decade or three away from some Wakanda action in the Congo, and it’s going to keep itself hidden away from the high tower oligarchs, no?
Sure, develop away. Do you might if I upload your post to the Kisangani 2150 project I’m currently running on Claude 3.5? I will of course cite you if and when the time comes.