Sometimes I invent science fiction worlds for no reason, since I’m unlikely to actually write any science fiction in the foreseeable future. So I’ll just put it up here because why not.

The future is dominated by 5 superintelligences that evolved from AIs. Each has its own dominion and a nickname that the people of the Reservation (see below) call it. All of them resulted from different sort of failures of AI alignment except maybe Narcissus although no one really knows.

The dominion of Ishtar is called Orgasmium, although it’s not really Orgasmium as early transhumanist thinkers used the word. In Orgasmium there is a multitude of biological humans, superficially not very different from the wild type. As Ishtar’s utility function would have it, these humans are born from mothers in the natural way. However, they spend all their life until puberty dreaming, fed by umbilical-like appendages going into their body from a vast “placenta”. When they reach puberty, they wake up and start exploring their surroundings and in particular their own and their peer’s bodies. As they quickly discover, their only desire is sex, and thereafter they spend all eternity in a nonstop orgy, needing neither sleep nor food or drink, all of their bodily needs supplied by the umbilical appendages.

Arupa is the dominion of Buddha, although those Buddhists that live in the Reservation find these names offensive and use different ones. The inhabitants of Arupa are knowns as the Transcendent and they are derivatives of humans. However, the Transcendent usually use no physical form but inhabit virtual realities of their own design. They have no interest in pleasures of the body and also no interest in love or friendship. The desires are the pursuit of abstract aesthetics and they fulfil them by engaging in mathematics, science and abstract art.

The Divine Empire is the dominion of Narcissus. Its inhabitants are mildly modified humans and its ruler is a human-like creature calling themselves the Divine Monarch, although many in the Reservation call them the Monster. The Monster exists in some state of symbiosis with the Narcissus superintelligence, the nature of which is largely a subject of speculation. The Monster enjoys absolute power over all of their subjects and derives great pleasure from their servitude and adoration. Sometimes the Monster allows insurrections to rise and then crushes them for amusement.

The Chaos is the dominion of Azathoth. Chaos is a very misleading name since in fact it is highly organized. However, Chaos contains no humans or anything even remotely resembling humans. Azathoth’s utility function is completely alien. 

The Reservation is the dominion of Manwe. It is inhabited by wild type humans that form societies much similar to those that existed in pre-Singularity times. Manwe makes few interventions except for blocking the use of technology beyond a certain level: dangerous technologies such as nuclear weapons, nanobots or superintelligent AI (other than Manwe) cannot exist in the Reservation. As a side effect, poverty and death also persevere.

Besides the 5 dominions above, there is a 6th realm called the Nexus, overseen jointly by Manwe, Buddha and Narcissus. In this realm, the inhabitants of the corresponding dominions can meet and many strange things happen. The Denizens of the Reservation come there mostly for profit, the Transcendent come out of curiosity and other reasons that nobody can fathom and Imperial Subjects come under orders of the Monster. Sometimes the latter try to escape into the Reservation and occasionally they even succeed (another source of amusement for the Monster). More often, Denizens migrate to the Empire, exchanging whatever political freedom they have for the possibility of eternal life. Very rarely, Denizens and Subjects are uploaded into Arupa, although their fate there is a mystery. Ishtar and Azathoth, on the other hand, show no interest in the Nexus.

Concept for science fiction: 7 stories about dystopian futures corresponding to the seven deadly sins.

• Pride: A physics experiment leads to false vacuum collapse which spreads outwards in the speed of light destroying everything on its path.
  
• Greed: Continued carbon dioxide emissions reach a phase transition into a positive feedback loop leading to runaway warming and Earth becoming uninhabitable.
• Envy: Transhumanism leads to a race to the bottom in which all human values are gradually displaced by optimization towards economic efficiency.
• Gluttony: The biosphere is consumed by hyper-efficient nanotech replicators.
• Wrath: Thermonuclear war leads to a long winter killing all humans and large animals.
• Sloth: Better and better automation ultimately leads to an AI apocalypse.
• Lust: A bioengineered pandemic causes everyone to go into a sex craze. Civilization devolves into an enormous orgy which continues for several days until most people of thirst and exhaustion. Asexuals are immune to the effect and survive leaving some glimmer of hope.
  

Spoiler for Bujold’s “Cryoburn” (Vorkosigan saga)

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Spoiler warning for Bujold’s “Cetaganda” (Vorkosigan saga)

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Spoiler for Bujold’s “Ethan of Athos” (Vorkosigan saga)

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Spoiler for Bujold’s “Komarr” (Vorkosigan saga)

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Fantasy setting: the First Rule of Magic is that magic cannot be used to change reality into a state which is better from the subjective perspective of the magician. Superficially, it makes magic completely useless. In fact, it doesn’t, because several magicians with different values can agree to perform a sequence of spells s.t. for each individual spell the caster is indifferent to the effect but the other magicians consider it beneficial, yielding strict Pareto improvement overall.

I decided that this tumblr blog doesn’t serve the functions I hope it would, and that it is a net negative influence on my productivity. Some of the posts will remain, but I will no longer produce new ones, and within a few days from now I will stop reading asks / messages / replies / reblogs.

That said, I will remember fondly some of the conversations I had here. Feel absolutely free to contact me in the future, at any time and for any reason: by e-mail (rot13 of gbc.fdhnex@tznvy.pbz) or via Facebook.

Goodbye everyone, and Elua bless you!