Here's a fun "before he was famous" moment - Andy Weir did an AMA on Reddit pre-The Martian success where he talked about writing The Egg. Here he responds to a question about his other writing where he goes on to mention that he's disappointed that The Martian hasn't been successful.
"Thanks! I wrote The Egg in an evening but it took years to write The Martian. Sometimes I'm a little sad that The Martian wasn't anywhere near as popular, but I guess it's a niche readership. Hard sci-fi isn't for everyone."
I think it says much that hard sci-fi isn’t popular to modern science and or the economy or government. Ie modern society lacks some sort of gee whiz goal on the horizon to push interest. Electric cars are cool, for instance, but they’re here and they’re not practical for apartment renters and distance drivers. Space discoveries are cool, but they take a long time to pull off and the results aren’t very compelling - with the exception of anything ET life related.
I feel like modern science may somehow be restricting or restricted from ground breaking, compelling discoveries.
Like, imagine if the world had a big-budget moonshot research project? Mining and colonizing asteroids, a space elevator, novel thruster technology, colonizing the seas even.
And yet it still serves as a common talking point for inspiration. People did go into the sciences in the past and day dream of all sorts of things because of the Apollo missions. The political realities of the Cold War helped fund the project...sort of like how the fight against terrorism helps fund projects to this day.
This seems like such an odd response to me. The Martian is as far as you can get from hard sci-fi?
It seems like Andy writes exactly for movies. Heavy on scene and technicality details, but very, very scant on quality dialogue and character development.
I'm pretty sure it was on the front page more often than that, probably as a link to another, secondary source. I've certainly seen it on the front page some time after 2010.
Ha, I now see it and realize I upvoted it as well... which is also why I think I missed it. The upvote arrows act as a bullet point and thus I think I skipped right over that one since it was missing.
It isn't if we can't find the electrons going backwards, which we generally can't. Nowhere near enough positrons in the right places. I consider it a fun example of the sort of thing that modern physicists should be familiar with, so it's useful both historically and for didactic purposes, but as a conjecture it appears to be simply false.
Sometimes I wish I knew some in-depth physics, take a bunch of LSD, and see what hidden truths would emerge... Does that happen? A bunch of scientists should really take some psychedelics together.
No, it could be disproven. Take a high-energy gamma ray, and have it undergo pair production, creating an electron and a positron. Capture both in the same Penning trap, then let them annihilate.
This would result in a loop that is disconnected from any other electrons, showing that the electron/positron in the loop is distinct from other electrons.
Have loved this story since the first time that I read it several years ago. Until today I never knew that it was written by Andy Weir of The Martian fame.
A great story. It's similar in a lot of ways to how people believe that Buddhas (according to Theravada Buddhism, many, many Buddhas live among us and almost all of us will become one) fulfill his path to enlightenment this way--reincarnation after another, absorbing all experiences along the way until he is ready to become the Enlightened one.
Disclaimer: I was born Buddhist, but no longer. But I still admire a few aspects of Theravada Buddhism.
> Eluding is the invariable game. The typical act of eluding, the fatal evasion that constitutes the third theme of this essay, is hope. Hope of another life one must “deserve” or trickery of those who live not for life itself but for some great idea that will transcend it, refine it, give it a meaning, and betray it.
The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus
The submitted story really rubs me the wrong way. It's just fatalism with a bit of make-up. It's saying that should let go of your lack of growth as an individual, because you can just pretend you don't exist in the grand scheme of things, and defer to your relationship to the universe and live vicariously through some bastardized concept of the universe growing as one. It's just an excuse for fully embracing fatalism. Sure, you walk away from this story with a tinge of positivity and a slight mandate to start treating others the way you want to be treated, but that's just a meaningless platitude, and it's just a red herring to distract you from the horrible message underneath.
Heh,
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought if you have reincarnation then why would time also be linear?
You could be every living thing in a universe.
This story seems to be suggesting that if the universe was a training program for a superbeing then we would be more incented to be moral. But as far as I know the universe isn't a training program for a superbeing, so I'm not sure what the moral is supposed to be. It's like an anti-allegory.
Read this a while back and found it to be unique and thought provoking. I really enjoyed it, however my only issue with it was the part where you have to live every human life. It made me think of “The Species Problem.” Basically a God in the idea he portrays would have to live through the lives of every living being on earth.
I’m always interested in the positive reactions to this story. I think it’s quite good, but it also terrifies me. Living a hundred billion lives, many of them mindbendingly horrible, and getting mind wiped after each one, sounds like Hell.
I believe in past lives. You won't believe me, or you may think I'm delusional or very imaginative, but I remember some of my past lives.
One of my most vivid memories: I was a woman in some country in Africa. I lived in a hut which was some torn concrete fixed up with mud and a thatched roof. I had two sons-- one was about three, and the other was a baby. I don't know where my husband was in these memories, but I remember that i liked him-- like I was growing fond of him, because perhaps I wasn't sure before? I remember carrying the baby in my arms. He was my favorite (I had a bad feeling about the older boy). So I remember constantly looking into the baby's eyes to see if he still had sweetness. I don't remember their names and I don't remember the time period. Bad stuff happened and I died young and I don't know what happened to my boys.
I believe I only remember what's relevant to me in this life, and that souls aren't just reincarnated on Earth. I don't believe in karma, just life/soul lessons.
That’s cool, but it’s uncool that it doesn’t seem to actually work, and I have to spend trillions of years living through the consequences without the ability to learn from my mistakes.
Of course you don't remember it, that's part of the point. If you remembered it, you'd treat yourself better because you'd know it was you. The lesson is about how you behave when you don't know that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/zt1n6/i_am_andy_weir_...