NationStates Post-Modern Tech Community Thread

[The Macabees]

lol I was going to make a joke along those lines.

[Post War America]

lol I was going to make a joke along those lines.

It needed to be done. Even if I be the exception that proves the rule.

[The Macabees]

Souls, on the Discord mentor server, shared a couple of great resources on technology readiness levels and speculative tech that's often used NS:

• Technology Readiness Levels (White Paper)
• Technology Readiness Assessment Guidance

As I understand, there will be a compilation post at some point soon and I will link to that as well.

[Post War America]

Souls, on the Discord mentor server, shared a couple of great resources on technology readiness levels and speculative tech that's often used NS:

• Technology Readiness Levels (White Paper)
• Technology Readiness Assessment Guidance

As I understand, there will be a compilation post at some point soon and I will link to that as well.

These look neat.

[UniversalCommons]

An interesting read is The Strategy of Technology by Jerry Pournelle.
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/Strat.html

[The Macabees]

An interesting read is The Strategy of Technology by Jerry Pournelle.
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/Strat.html

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

[Havensky]

Hi all,

I've put together a Guide for Establishing and Implementing a Code for Conduct for Discord: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=960646

I'm hoping that it's useful in helping in policing some of the trolls that are out there.

[The Macabees]

Awesome guide. My experience mirrors the advice, both in terms of the bad chat communities I've been in and the good ones.

[The State of Monavia]

Hi all,

I've put together a Guide for Establishing and Implementing a Code for Conduct for Discord: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=960646

I'm hoping that it's useful in helping in policing some of the trolls that are out there.

You have brought an excellent concept to life by creating this guide. My initial impression of it was largely positive; it should not hurt at all to tweak the formatting a bit to enhance readability. The only piece of ambiguity I see any need to have cleared up is the need to state where the lines are that you want users to avoid crossing. Kyru and a number of others can be especially helpful in tailoring any necessary definitions as needed.

[The Macabees]

Discussion Question:

On our Discord server, Vistora asks, "[W]hat are your favourite soft or firm science fiction elements? Specifically, those that would still fit in a broadly PMT setting."

People answered with:

• Genetic engineering;
• Comprehensive data collection for predictive algorithms;*
• Power armor.

...and other similar answers.

And Vistora makes the interesting, and correct in most definitions of hard/soft SF, quip that those are hard PMT elements.

The thing is that for most people on NS, those are actually soft elements, or somewhere between hard and soft PMT elements. 10 years ago, they would have been seen as hard PMT — just look at any tank from that era —, but because of widespread abuse the definition of hard and soft evolved. People stopped treating it as window dressing and started treating it as the decisive factors behind the outcomes of their stories, and players decided to retrogress to very literal definitions of 'hard' technology because the weight of speculative tech could not be determined easily and RPs easily turned into OOC debates, or just simply died.

Vistora's question, the answers, and the follow-up discussion revealed this reality, this divergence in definitions between hard PMT/SF — and remember, a lot of SF in literature is PMT — in actual literature and within the communities on NationStates.

To give a concrete example: I RP with full-suit power armor. I am not concerned with whether it is 100% realistic. I don't care if modern technology does not produce batteries or actuators that are small enough. I don't care if there really is, currently, no way of feeding moving soldiers with drugs without bruising their skin or rupturing their veins, I can find non-rigorous explanations that would fit within a hard SF setting in the literary sense to explain their existence in my PMT world. Feeding my troops with drugs doesn't directly determine the outcomes of battles/victories/losses, it determines how I tell the story of the man inside the suit.

But I know that this tech would not fly with a lot of other players, including players who call themselves PMT. And this outlook is the product of a unique culture on NS, on that has been shaped by roleplaying experiences since roleplayers started to post on the forum back in November 2002.

What are your opinions on this?


* Not part of the question at all, but predictive algorithms are getting big in marketing and, as an economist/statistician/professional marketer, I have to remind my colleagues about the Lucas Critique -- this sort of data is only predictive until actors have internalized the prediction into their expectations. Then the prediction breaks down. Predictive models need more than data, they need strong theoretical foundations that are universally true.

[Vistora]

I will be honest in saying that I'm not tremendously well tapped-into the PMT situation in II in general, since I usually RP with closed-canon groups. However, I nevertheless get the impression that, as Macabees mentioned, the definition of "hard" science fiction on NS has somewhat gotten away from itself to mean what some people identify as "MT+"; that is, pretty much modern-day technology with some cutting edge and experimental stuff thrown in for the aesthetic appeal. If I'm to be honest, I fully reject this analysis of what constitutes hard science fiction. Speaking more broadly within the genre of sci-fi literature itself, hard sci-fi simply means a faithful adherence to scientific principles in developing the technology of the setting, wherein the speculative elements are feasible derivations of modern scientific theories.

My own Vistora "Primeverse" canon is very much an exploration of this. Set in the mid-22nd century, it would be foolish and myopic to portray technology as merely a few steps ahead of where it is today, yet I nevertheless wanted it to remain in the realm of hard science fiction. As a result, effectively every technology present within it, though certainly very advanced by moderns standards, are based on solid, proven foundations.

Part of the reason I prefer sticking to discrete, closed canons whose participants are closely coordinated is because it allows for much more freedom in how the setting is structured and organized. We don't have to regress to a common baseline to avoid conflict.

[Allanea]

There are three essential approaches:

1. "Things that are likely to exist within the next 20 years". (Early within NS, it was considered to be 'about 2020', but it is now 2018). You could reasonably look at what is currently being researched and developed IRL and have certain clues about this.

2. "Things that are feasible, i.e. it is possible to reasonably suspend disbelief about them within the next 20 years, given the current state of the science and the contexts of the greater NS multiverse". This includes not only things for which we have actual prototypes, but things for which feasibility studies have been done, such as atomic-powered trains and aircraft.

3. "Things that - whether or not they are necessarily feasible - cconsidered acceptable in games and science fiction works set in the near future". A good example of this sort of content can be seen in the old Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying game, or in the Ghost in the Shell anime.

[The State of Monavia]

Discussion Question:

On our Discord server, Vistora asks, "[W]hat are your favourite soft or firm science fiction elements? Specifically, those that would still fit in a broadly PMT setting."

People answered with:

• Genetic engineering;
• Comprehensive data collection for predictive algorithms;*
• Power armor.

...and other similar answers.

And Vistora makes the interesting, and correct in most definitions of hard/soft SF, quip that those are hard PMT elements.

I happen to have a strong liking for cutting-edge materials (carbon nanotubes, cermet, AlON polymers, and other such materials), thorium reactors, long-range unmanned submarine vehicles, supersonic stealth UAVs, railguns, and the robotization of society. Some of these items are standard Novan fare, others are more unique to my tastes.

The thing is that for most people on NS, those are actually soft elements, or somewhere between hard and soft PMT elements. 10 years ago, they would have been seen as hard PMT — just look at any tank from that era —, but because of widespread abuse the definition of hard and soft evolved. People stopped treating it as window dressing and started treating it as the decisive factors behind the outcomes of their stories, and players decided to retrogress to very literal definitions of 'hard' technology because the weight of speculative tech could not be determined easily and RPs easily turned into OOC debates, or just simply died.

Vistora's question, the answers, and the follow-up discussion revealed this reality, this divergence in definitions between hard PMT/SF — and remember, a lot of SF in literature is PMT — in actual literature and within the communities on NationStates.

One factor RPers must consider is determining a reasonable quantity of cutting-edge, experimental, and theoretical technology to roleplay with in an IC thread. For instance, I have no problem with an RPer running an MT+ or traditional MT country deciding to spend billions on titanium-framed railgun tanks with carbon nanotube armor if they only intend to RP producing a dozen of them to protect a command center in their capital during the course of an entire RP arc. History offers us many real-life examples of superweapons from the ancient Helepolis of Rhodes to the modern Project Babylon that would be fair to RP having in small numbers but unfair to RP having in abundance.

Another factor that plays a major part in igniting and subsequently fueling OOC firestorms is disagreement over the exact capabilities of a given piece of technology in a given IC context and the exact effects its employment in the RP should have on the progression of its plot. These disagreements often boil down to RPers getting heated with one another up over whether a certain weapon can kill a particular character or whether a given missile can slip past a certain type of RADAR undetected. Once you get a crowd of hard MT RPers in the same RP as a bunch of PMT-lite RPers and a disagreement crops up over the technical specification and performance capabilities of something, you may as well use the inevitable OOC flame war to pop some fresh popcorn to munch on while watching the fireworks.

To give a concrete example: I RP with full-suit power armor. I am not concerned with whether it is 100% realistic. I don't care if modern technology does not produce batteries or actuators that are small enough. I don't care if there really is, currently, no way of feeding moving soldiers with drugs without bruising their skin or rupturing their veins, I can find non-rigorous explanations that would fit within a hard SF setting in the literary sense to explain their existence in my PMT world. Feeding my troops with drugs doesn't directly determine the outcomes of battles/victories/losses, it determines how I tell the story of the man inside the suit.

But I know that this tech would not fly with a lot of other players, including players who call themselves PMT. And this outlook is the product of a unique culture on NS, on that has been shaped by roleplaying experiences since roleplayers started to post on the forum back in November 2002.

What are your opinions on this?

So long as you judiciously apply the Rule of Cool in a way that does not amount to godmoding, all seems well. As Euroslavia explained back in 2009:

Not Quite a Godmode, but...
Separate Example of Weaponry
“My tanks go 1044054650mph, and they can fire 100 missiles!!! My ships go 235436 knots, and can avoid your attacks no matter what!!

Explanation: Ultimately, no weapon is a godmode in and of itself, it may be unrealistic and therefore abuse-worthy if it's creator tries to imply it could really be built, but until you do something technology has no effect on anyone else and therefore does not qualify for the high and supreme definition of Godmode, namely:

A Godmode is an arbitary statement of superiority detrimental to good RP.

The aforementioned ridicu-tank / ship would make a difference if used as such in a military RP without any related problems RP'd [in fact I personally believe most techno-sillyness isn't that bad as long as you don't start dodging the natural drawbacks of weapon types], but having a character RP party on a million-mile-per-hour ship shouldn't be a problem because the ship's existence and performance confer no advantage to the owner in that scenario. Everything is relative; you can Godmode just as well with a T-72 as with any ridicu-tank design.

However, abusing higher tech for arbitary advantage is Godmoding. For example, using FTL cold fusion-powered spaceships with ultrashields against a modern nation would be godmoding if the modern nation did not agree to their existence beforehand; in other words, you can't force a higher tech level on another player.

There are, of course, some additional considerations I choose to make when evaluating the realism of RPing certain technologies. For instance, I do not object to other RPers claiming their NS nations can build kilometer-long warships that have a fifty-meter draft, but I do object to them claiming they can build 1,000 of them a year or anchor a ship of that size and waterline depth anywhere they want near the coast of another NS nation. Another example is the use of supersized tanks in PMT (once ubiquitous, now rarely seen). Again, I do not object to another RPer claiming he or she can fairly use some Landkreuzer P 1500 Monster-inspired fortress on tracks in an RP thread, but it does not seem fair to claim that one of their landing ships can just pull up anywhere on the coast of another NS nation and offload a few of them (especially on an unprepared landing site) and drive them on any terrain they like without encountering problems. In short, my whole point here is that we sometimes forget that any technology has limitations we forget to think about in the midst of writing IC material and that it is incumbent on us to recognize when we might be trying to overplay our hands.

I will be honest in saying that I'm not tremendously well tapped-into the PMT situation in II in general, since I usually RP with closed-canon groups. However, I nevertheless get the impression that, as Macabees mentioned, the definition of "hard" science fiction on NS has somewhat gotten away from itself to mean what some people identify as "MT+"; that is, pretty much modern-day technology with some cutting edge and experimental stuff thrown in for the aesthetic appeal.

I largely agree with your reasoning here since I distinctly recall Jolt-vintage RPers coming up with definitions like “for NS purposes, MT is anything currently available in RL plus anything that is likely to come out within the next five years” and trying to get the RP community to adopt them as rules of thumb. In practice they succeeded (at least with the newbies, much as the “five percent rule” did in teaching newbies how to create militaries for the first time).

There are three essential approaches:

1. "Things that are likely to exist within the next 20 years". (Early within NS, it was considered to be 'about 2020', but it is now 2018). You could reasonably look at what is currently being researched and developed IRL and have certain clues about this.

2. "Things that are feasible, i.e. it is possible to reasonably suspend disbelief about them within the next 20 years, given the current state of the science and the contexts of the greater NS multiverse". This includes not only things for which we have actual prototypes, but things for which feasibility studies have been done, such as atomic-powered trains and aircraft.

3. "Things that - whether or not they are necessarily feasible - cconsidered [sic] acceptable in games and science fiction works set in the near future". A good example of this sort of content can be seen in the old Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying game, or in the Ghost in the Shell anime.

Your first approach, which I will refer to as a hard rolling window approach, has the same benefit of flexibility as the next two approaches while still retaining a lot of hardness. I think part of the problem that occurs when HMT and MT+ RPers butt heads is that they are trying to play by the same (or similar) rules but attach different definitions to those rules. For example, HMT RPers might be inclined to take your first approach and scale down the twenty-year window to ten years or less, or they might argue with an MT+ RPer over whether a given technology qualifies as “likely to exist within the next x years.”

[UniversalCommons]

This is an idea for an alternative timeline for the advancement of knowledge.

Here are a few things that have changed in my timeline.

Thre is the classic idea of the Babbage Engine-- 19th Century
http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/howitworks/

I think this would have changed how electromechanical systems would have evolved and by todays time there would finely controlled electromechanical systems.

The Memex was actually built in 1950
As We May Think
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... nk/303881/

The beginning of the computer revolution would have been different.
We would have a full conversion of the Memex to a digital form combined with advanced electromechanical system. This might have started around 1980. Effectively, the World Brain Concept could have been realized in an alternate timeline. https://sherlock.ischool.berkeley.edu/w ... brain.html

With the ideal of Wikipedia, you would have a truly universal knowledge network, something much larger than exists today, This would have happened around 1990. It would be in some ways different and much more comprehensive than the internet.

[UniversalCommons]

I was reading about the Goodyear Spherical Maglev tire. http://www.rumblerum.com/futuristic-con ... spherical/

I was thinking this might be good for a 6 wheeled modular ATV platform. You could put a variety of designs on the drive train-- tank killer, anti-aircraft platform, troop transport, ambulance, etc.

[Jackania yugo]

So...thing's like plasma rifles are allowed?

[New Aeyariss]

So...thing's like plasma rifles are allowed?

Can you give us a feasible explanation of how such a plasma weapon will work? If so, yes. In general it depends on whom you are RPing with, and what standards you set to yourselves.

[Jackania yugo]

So...thing's like plasma rifles are allowed?

Can you give us a feasible explanation of how such a plasma weapon will work? If so, yes. In general it depends on whom you are RPing with, and what standards you set to yourselves.

What separates a PMT plasma rifle from a FT plasma rifle?

[Libraria and Ausitoria]

It depends. One could make an MT plasma weapon. It would be called a nuclear weapon, in particular, a thermonuclear one; or an electromagnetic pulse produces plasma, as does a suitable laser. Also I understand there is a considerable quantity of research going into plasma shields, which could no doubt be stunningly (pun intended) effective against anyone who was in the wrong place.

So really where you'd place it on the MT-FT scale would depend on how the rifle worked, and the rifle's size, cost, and effectiveness, and whether the RPers thought that it used a principle that was known, and whether that mattered to their determination of whether it was PMT or FT.

So it depends.

[The Macabees]

Here's a quick, easy, and interesting review of some recent advancements in rescue bots, for inspiration.

[A m e n r i a]

Hello, PMT nation here, hello everyone. I have some questions regarding my military. First, I need to determine the size. How big will Asia (minus Japan except for Kyushu)'s population be in 2046 after a two-year world war on 2040-2042? How much of that population would be male and in the conscription age (14-40)? Sorry if my questions sound weird, I was never good with numbers.

[The Macabees]

Hello, PMT nation here, hello everyone. I have some questions regarding my military. First, I need to determine the size. How big will Asia (minus Japan except for Kyushu)'s population be in 2046 after a two-year world war on 2040-2042?

That depends on your answers to the various questions you should ask yourself to build this world. Because it's not RL Asia in 2046, it's your conception of what Asia may be like in 2046.

Some relevant questions:

• How does the history of Asia play out between current day and that world war in 2040? The answer to this question will determine how this world got to that world war. It can't be random, there has to be a compelling reason that the characters (in this case, entire countries) followed that path. It will also help to determine the face and nature of this world.
• What consequences did this world war have?
• How do growing incomes, policies, and wars affect birth rates?
• Are incomes even growing or is the world economy retrogressing?
• Do these individual countries have birth policies?
• Do these individual countries have internal turmoil that would affect this?

Let's quickly explore why these questions matter, by way of example. Let's say that the world war causes 50% of the world's population to die. This obviously has an impact on your question, because Asia's population will be different if 25% of the world's population dies, for example.

But there's so much room to be unique by figuring out what these questions are and answering them in a way that allows your world, and the stories in them, to make sense.

[A m e n r i a]

Hello, PMT nation here, hello everyone. I have some questions regarding my military. First, I need to determine the size. How big will Asia (minus Japan except for Kyushu)'s population be in 2046 after a two-year world war on 2040-2042?

That depends on your answers to the various questions you should ask yourself to build this world. Because it's not RL Asia in 2046, it's your conception of what Asia may be like in 2046.

Some relevant questions:

• How does the history of Asia play out between current day and that world war in 2040? The answer to this question will determine how this world got to that world war. It can't be random, there has to be a compelling reason that the characters (in this case, entire countries) followed that path. It will also help to determine the face and nature of this world.
• What consequences did this world war have?
• How do growing incomes, policies, and wars affect birth rates?
• Are incomes even growing or is the world economy retrogressing?
• Do these individual countries have birth policies?
• Do these individual countries have internal turmoil that would affect this?

Let's quickly explore why these questions matter, by way of example. Let's say that the world war causes 50% of the world's population to die. This obviously has an impact on your question, because Asia's population will be different if 25% of the world's population dies, for example.

But there's so much room to be unique by figuring out what these questions are and answering them in a way that allows your world, and the stories in them, to make sense.

Okay, let me answer those one by one:

1. The cold-war like scenario between the US and China escalates to the point that China makes an extra effort to befriend other Asian nations to oppose NATO, creating a new bloc called the Pan-Asian Alliance. Africa and Australia lean closer to Asia since they're tired of NATO's shite.

2. Some lands have fallout, most notably North Korea and surrounding territories, the US, and some of Europe. Most of the fallout in Asia was cleaned though, and rebuilding is being done quickly in the East. It's a different story in America though.

3. To be answered in the next parts of the post.

4. Incomes in Asia? Growing. The war may have harmed our economy, but we have colonies which supply us with money and markets, plus scientific discoveries that boosted our production.

5. Because rl China has a two-child policy now, I'd think they'd take it slow and let families have 3 children after losing some people on the battlefield. We all now Indians and Indonesians reproduce quickly, so there's that.

6. I don't think there would be enough internal conflict to affect birth laws imho.

[The Macabees]

This question is often alluded to in our Discord server, so I figured I'd bring it up for discussion here:

How do you define PMT?

I'm curious as to how you, in an admittedly fractured community, see yourself with respect to the genre you've self-selected into. How do you define that community?

[New Aeyariss]

How do you define PMT?

MT = everything that is currently in use.

PMT = everything that is theoretically possible above.


In general for me the claims that MT = now + x years (like the infamous now + 20 years claim) are nothing else than attempts of people to wank in their threads and to give themselves an advantage by using technologies that are not in service now

I do not however have any problem with PMTers as long as they acknowledge that their tech is PMT and use it accordingly in threads that are PMT, which is sadly something very few of them do....