Gétur FránssonJun 29, 2024
Alice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️

I think a lot of time when the Torment Nexus thing is brought up, people are getting the arrow of causality the wrong way around. It's not that necessarily that Bobby Techbro read "Don't Create the Torment Nexus" and was inspired to make one, even if that's what the marketing tries to sell it as.

No I think that's not giving scifi authors the proper respect as futurists. They looked at how things were going and thought "man, this might lead to a Torment Nexus" and then wrote a story about that.

Jun 29, 2024 at 6:46pmWeb
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Jun 29, 2024

And they were right. A Torment Nexus did get built, it just got named after the one in their book because of the obvious precedent.

Had they not written the book, the Torment Nexus would still exist, it just would have been called the TechCo.io TortureHub instead.

Show threadAmir Livne Bar-onJun 29, 2024
@foone
Except if the author said that the service would be provided by the actual Mafia. Then the name is already taken so they must invent some new name like "Uber torments" or something.
Show threadDiego DNM Jun 29, 2024
@foone you are 100000000% right
Show threadJeff GriggJun 29, 2024

@foone

'We have created The Torment Nexus, inspired from the award winning classic scifi dystopia "Please Don't Build The Torment Nexus".'

is a really odd marketing message for something they would have built anyway.

Show threadRodneyJun 30, 2024
@foone Really, though, the techbros probably did not read these novels, or even watch any films or TV series based on them, but rather have just heard of such plots having once existed in some book. These people aren't smart enough to actually read anything.
Show threadÁngela Stella MatutinaJun 29, 2024

@foone

And that's the story that gets remembered. Typical of shotgun futurism.

Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Jun 29, 2024
@foone
"ALL OUR TORMENT ARE BELONG TO YOU"
– Nexus
Show threadIan Douglas ScottJun 29, 2024

@foone This is definitely true.

Though also, if people are naming their companies things like "Soylent" and "Palantir", they do seem to be somewhat influenced by fiction. And getting the wrong message.

Show threadsmall patatasJun 29, 2024

@ids1024
Yeah I think I agree that it can work in a circular way, like you're describing.

Fair warning, it's excruciating to listen to, but a couple years ago a "green cryptocurrency" podcast invited Kim Stanley Robinson on to talk about his book The Ministry for the Future - and well, let's just say that our boy Stan tried his damnedest:

https://m.soundcloud.com/planetaryregeneration/ep-42-kim-stanley-robinson-the-ministry-for-the-future

@foone

042: Kim Stanley Robinson | The Ministry for the Future

Stream 042: Kim Stanley Robinson | The Ministry for the Future by Planetary Regeneration Podcast with Gregory Landua on desktop and mobile. Play over 320 million tracks for free on SoundCloud.

SoundCloud
Show threadViolet MadderJun 29, 2024

@smallpatatas @ids1024 @foone

Yes I think it's definitely both.

Show threadsilverwizardJun 29, 2024

@foone Gibson looked at the 80s and went "this is fucked and bad" and then got invited to talk to orgs telling him "We're trying to build the future of your books"

(I'm not disagreeing with you, but that sticks with me when I hear the Torment Nexus thing)

Show threadFoolishOwlJun 29, 2024
@silverwizard @foone Part of the force of the joke is that we've had decades of mass media that split the superficial imagery of science fiction from the social criticism at the core of it.
Show threadTindraJun 29, 2024
@foone I remember when Nick Harkaway was writing Gnomon he kept getting frustrated because the things he was writing as “maybe this will happen in a decade or three” kept happening as he was writing it.