For me, the best part of the episode was when they tried to "surrender to the rebellion" and there was a second automated system by someone further up the fascist hierarchy.
The "anaphalaxis" I was talking about was the alternative to the sub crush, and what happened to the billionaire that is the subject of the article, so I think you might have misunderstood me?
Based on the simulations I've seen, yeah. I'm sure there were plenty of panic in the sub and during the anaphylaxis, but I believe once the sub failed, there was less than a second between in first physical sensation to the complete disorganization of the nervous system, rendering the sub death quite painless. With anaphlaxis, even a sudden, sever attack, there will be several minutes of (at least) muscle strain as your diaphragm desperately tries to pull in more oxygen, and also general pain as your tissues squeeze against one another as they expand and nerve cells die.
I can and have accepted death; I'm too old to believe radical life extension will save me. But, many deaths are incredibly painful. If I have a choice on how to go out, inert gas asphyxiation seems best, but some sort of rapid disorganization isn't too bad. Anaphylactic shock seems worse.
I am unconvinced of "meat" being a uniquely-suitable substrate for anything remotely like consciousness. I think the crazy amount of silly things that turn out to be Turning-complete is sufficient evidence that meat is unlikely to be unique.
Tho, certainly, I'm not ready to be the first volunteer to be digitized or whatever.
Unabridged audio books at 3x speed -- ramp the speed up slowly, if you need to -- and you can rip through books quite quickly. But, more reading could be good. (I know I should probably no more actual reading, too.)
I don't really buy that non-epansionist requires stable-population; there's a lot of optimization potential and each one we achieve means that we can support a larger population on the same energy input. There are physical limits, sure, but it doesn't strike me that The Culture is up against them (and we are many, many orders of magnitude away; we hardly use most of the solar energy that enters the atmosphere, which is a tiny fraction of the solar output, which is a tiny fraction of what a controlled (rather than "gravitationally-organized") fusion reactor can produce on the same fuel).
I also don't buy that stable-population means involuntary death. Even once it stops being a majority position, I think you are going to have some people that opt-in to death for a variety of reasons which allows for a non-zero birth rate.
In all cases, involuntary death seems only motivated by resource limitations, so involuntary restrictions on resource usage would be preferable to involuntary death. (Those involuntary restrictions might turn into voluntary deaths, but certainly not always and likely exceedingly rarely at first.)
I don't think it would happen is "just" 400 years, but I can imagine deciding to opt-in to death "just" to allow a different, new consciousness to experience things, and that may very well be what's happening in The Culture.
It’s just that, in my sci-fi reading experience, the attitudes towards radical life extension always seem to be very conservative
Despite all our posturing as a society about choosing life, etc, we are just a species of death-loving mortalists.
I think this reflects our current culture. A lot of people seem to really think that death is what gives life meaning, and that bitter experiences are good because they make sweet experiences better. (They really need to understand The fable of the dragon-tyrant)
On top of that, even for people that don't see death as a "positive", many tend to think of life extension as making aging simply last longer, that you'd continue to get more frail and dotty (or whatever) for another decade or two.
There is fiction that celebrates radical life extension, but it is at least as rare as people that want radical life extension. And, even then, many of those people (myself included) as captured by the idea of uploading or otherwise separating the consciousness from the body, which doesn't seem to be what you want. https://www.fullmoon.nu/Resurrection/PrimarySpecies.html
I think with all the options for a non-physical existence, it's seen as quaint that one would choose to permanently extend their physical existence. But, I'm not an expert; I've only done the audiobooks for a few of the Culture series.
I don't know enough of the "rules" around consciousness transfer in the Culture universe, if there are any. I can imagine a future were we find out that consciousness is somehow non-copiable and non-mobile, and if that is the case, then I think a lot of people are going to be interested in putting off death forever, one day at a time (maybe tomorrow... but not today). If you can copy consciousness (which is what "backup services" implies to me), things get weird quickly; intentionally or accidentally there could be multiple living individuals that all share my whole history up to some copy point, e.g. Restoring my backup to a separate vessel in Utopia doesn't stop torture or other suffering that might continue for my current vessel.
I think "eccenticity" has a connotation of negative judgment. So, yeah, I think "frowned upon" is an accurate summary of the attitude toward the rare biological citizen that chooses physical immortality.
But, no one is expected to just let "natural" biology cripple and kill them in a mere 80 years. They get to choose when they die, and most choose to end their physical existence sometime after 400 years, tho that's not always the end: they "simply" stop having a fixed physical vessel.
If you knew anything about The Culture, you'd know it's not that simple.
Attitudes individual citizens have towards death are varied (and have varied throughout the Culture's history). While many, if not most, citizens make some use of backup technology, many others do not, preferring instead to risk death without the possibility of recovery (for example when engaging in extreme sports). These citizens are sometimes called "disposables", and are described in Look to Windward. Taking into account such accidents, voluntary euthanasia for emotional reasons, or choices like sublimation (abandoning physical reality), the average lifespan of humans is said in Excession to be around 350 to 400 years. Some citizens choose to forgo death altogether, although this is rarely done and is viewed as an eccentricity. Other options instead of death include conversion of an individual's consciousness into an AI, joining of a group mind (which can include biological and non-biological consciousnesses), or subliming (usually in association with a group mind).
"sign jokes" are probably written by "the room". Everyone tosses out 2-3, and the whoever is running the room for that episode picks one. They might even keep a backlog for these since they don't really have to be related to the episode plots/topics. Simpsons and Futurama also have them in many episodes, but Bob's Burger's is the only show I know that always has one (two if you count the "Burger of the Day").
Agreed. I tend toward more literal translations for instruction/explanation -- it made things stick better for me when learning Spanish. But, yes, in context "harder" is a definitely a more useful translation.
I think that's the Dewey decimal system, which inspired the Chewy decimal system, which is the next innovation in grocery store layouts.