Thank you for sharing!
Hello glich! Thanks for writing this whole series. When I've first read it a year ago, I thought to myself, that instead of impulsively going to implement it right ahead, I'll wait one year to hear from you about how your strategy worked for you, first.
So.. How are you doing?
Wouldn't the same argumentation lead to conclusion, that world should've already end soon after we've figured out how to make atomic bomb?
I don't know how to write a novel with world which survives in equilibrium longer than a week (and this is one reason I've asked this question - I'd like to read ideas of others) but I suspect that the same way atomic bomb releases insane amounts of energy, yet we have reasons not to do that repeatedly, mages in would have good reasons to avoid destroying the world. Perhaps there's not much to gain from doing so, maybe there's M.A.D., maybe once you are smart enough to do that you are also smart enough not to do that, maybe you have to swear not to do that.
It could also be the case that I am too confident of our nuclear security. What's currently our best reason not to blow up ourselves? Is it that nuclear energy costs a lot?
"translater" -> "translator"?
"An division" -> "A division"
Lots of details could matter, and the spareness of the writing only hints at what could be going on "for really reals".
Thank you, this was enlightening for me - somehow, though I've read a few books and watched a few movies in my life, I hadn't realized what you put here plainly, that these cuts are a device for the author to hide some truth from me (ok, this was obvious in "Memento"). I must've been very naive, as I simply thought it has more to do with MTV-culture/catering to short attention span of the audience. It's funny how this technique becomes immediately obvious to me once I mentally flip the roles with the author and ask a question "how would I hide something from the reader or mislead them to believe some alternative explanation while not outright lying?".
Hm, perhaps a similar, but more visible and annoying technique/plot device is when the author abruptly ends a conversation between two characters by some explosion or arrival of third person, and they never get to finish their sentence or clarify some misunderstanding. On some level this is the same trick, but between two characters, as opposed to between author and reader.
I now wonder what other "manipulation" techniques I was subjected to. Anyone care to list some they become aware of?
Given that Vi is counting seconds from encountering soldiers to their collapse, AND that there are three dots between this scene and the scene where Miriam says "I've been there since Z-Day." (which technically is an inequality in the opposite direction than I need, but Miriam's choosing this particular wording looks suggestive to me) I'd venture a guess, that the Z-Day virus was released by Vi in the facility, and Miriam is trying to blame the rouge AI for this. I read this story as Vi and Miriam already crossing a line of "the end justifies the means" and simply infect and kill the "innocent" soldiers protecting the headquarter of their commander who is an em/AI, which Vi and Miriam perceive as a threat that needs to be eliminated at all cost.
[p.s.: I've wrote above comment before I've realized that I somehow missed to read 8th episode, and now, after ridding 8th episode, I think Vi and Miriam are cleaning up the mess they've created themselves - the rouge AI they fight in 9th episode is the one they've released, it just took over the command of the army by pretending to be their real commander]
Hello, very intriguing story!
"You will die. No matter what actions you'll take all the possible branches end with your death. Still, you try to pick optimal path, because that's what your brain's architecture know how to do: pick optimal branch. You try to salvage this approach by proposing more and more complicated goal functions: instead of final value, let's look at the sum over time, or avg, or max, or maybe ascribe other value to death, or try to extend summation beyond it, or whatever. You brain is a hammer, and it needs a nail. But it never occurs to you, that life is not something one needs to optimize. This is not an instance of the problem your brain is built to solve, and it looks silly to me you try to fit it by force to your preferred format. This is your inductive bias, so strong you probably don't get what I'm trying to say to you: yes, you'll die, but this doesn't count."
(I'm surprised nobody wrote it for 12 years, or at least my eyes can't see it)
"The appeared" -> "They appeared"
So what's the end state Putin wants to achieve through invading Ukraine? If Ukraine becomes part of Russia, then Russia will be bordering with NATO states.