Cory interviewed in Prism Magazine

Geoffrey Cole of Prism Magazine has posted the first part of a three-part interview we conducted in Vancouver, back when I was touring with Pirate Cinema. In this part, we talk about many subjects, notably Rapture of the Nerds:

The “Rapture” in Rapture of the Nerds has many meanings. Foremost, it is the ascension of most of biological humanity to a purely digital existence. Do you really think that such a huge percentage of humanity would leave their bodies behind if they could?
Yeah, totally. The question of whether such an option will likely be available to us is something I’m not at all certain about, but in the presence of such an option, I’m very confident that large numbers of people would opt for it. We like get-evolved-quick schemes. If you can sell Thighmasters, you can sell mind uploading.

An Interview with Cory Doctorow, Part 1 of 3

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: happy mutants • religion • science fiction • singularity

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http://twitter.com/AndBobando ando bobando

The thing about uploading our consciousness is, I just can’t see how it would be anything but a copy of ourselves. In which case the physical form still exists unless you quietly kill it during the “transfer” process… And maybe we could someday figure out how to actually transfer ourselves without leaving any traces behind in our physical body, but I’d bet the copy + kill plan would be wayyyy easier and much cheaper.
ZikZak

I work hard for it but I know lots of people who work as hard as I do and haven’t done as well, and I know some amount of it has to be chalked up to luck.

I appreciate this sentiment. It kind of sucks to live in a world where “success” owes more to luck than to sweat, since we can never feel we truly earned what comes to us. But just because the economy is arbitrary doesn’t mean we haven’t worked for what we get.

It does mean, however, that we haven’t necessarily worked more than someone who gets less, and that ain’t fair. It can be hard to remember that from the winning side.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

FYI, the link pops to an anchor lower on the page, not directly to the start of the interview.

I know you’ve used the term before, but “get-evolved-quick schemes” is one of my favorite descriptions of the coming age of transhumanism.

I just hope that future is open source, with consumer legal protections far more robust than anything we have now, because finding that the servers containing my uploaded consciousness are bought in a hostile takeover and the TOS arbitrarily changed, may leave me shaking my tiny electron fists in impotent rage.