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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   22783 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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Your approach isn't bad. If I had to make a suggestion: have the universe be a simulation itself, and sufficiently-advanced ASI poses an unacceptable risk of breaking out of the sandbox or requiring too much in the way of computational resources. The Simulation Hypothesis plays a more explicit role in my own novel, but at the end of the day, it's perfectly fine to have even the AI gods sit around and moan about how they can't have it all.

But that's already the case! The whole scenario is simulated using the extremely limited bandwith of my own head, and I obviously cannot simulate what an extremely advanced and large AI will do. Introduce one or two layers of narrative, and I have cults and social trends offering different ways of dealing with the fact that their universe has no organic history, could end at any moment, and all of them are figments of someone's imagination.

Alright, yeah, downside of the whole scenario being me indulging myself with no external aspirations is that there's no pressure to separate worldbuilding from commentary. The whole universe-is-a-simulation aspect is minor and pretty much just me having fun, so it's not all there is to it, but I admit I spend quite some time toying with the idea.

I meant to add that the (presumably superior) ASI in the basement universe are intentionally killing off competition. What else are they doing? Nobody in the setting knows! Which excuses you, the author, from having to know or care about at least one set of eldritch deities. This is a highly subjective opinion, but I'd find that more narratively satisfying than the universe somehow prohibiting intelligence above a certain threshold.

I'd recommend you actually write something in your setting, you have at least one guaranteed reader (me), maybe even two or three haha. Just put it out there, I spent many years idly making things up in my head before I bit the bullet and put pen to paper.

I wish I had it in me, but while I can pump out worldbuilding fluff for hours on end, actual stories with characters and plot are beyond me.

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