(Trust In God) Production Notes

Yes, I realize my pronunciation of “Nagato” was all over the place. I apologize for that. With everything else going on I didn’t have time to fix it. :(

Last year I was blown away by a short story by Seth Dickinson called A Plant (Whose Name is Destroyed) (audio). I want to bring it up again here, because it has a very similar premise to Trust In God/Riddle of Kyon – that a godlike being incidentally causes things to happen simply by desiring them. And like TiG/RoK, it’s told from the god’s lover’s perspective. They are very different stories because they explore different aspects of the problem, but at their core they both have the same dilemma. It’s a good read, and I wanted to recommend it.

Upon recalling how much I enjoyed A Plant, I went and checked out Seth Dickinson’s other works. I’ve read over half of them now, and I gotta say – I STRONGLY recommend this author. Many of his works have a very strong transhumanist message, and some could be called rationalist. Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t already heard his name brought up on LessWrong, or SlateStarCodex, or /r/rational. I’m fixing that this week.

A few of my favorite stories:

Economies of Force – A post-GAI story where humanity made AI that *almost* captures our values, but not quite, and it results in the sort of utopia you might expect from that sort of failure. Shades of Amputation of Destiny and Bostrom’s Empty Disneyland. If anyone can figure out the significance of the name “Loom”, please let me know. It must have been chosen for a reason, but I’m not making the connection.

Sekhmet Hunts the Dying Gnosis: A Computation – A rather literal take on Meditations on Moloch, and/or An Alien God

Morrigan in the Sunglare – Like Bayesians vs Barbarians, told from the PoV of the Barbarians (sort of).

Kumara – a seriously beautiful post-singularity transhumanist story. Just… really beautiful. And murderous.

There’s more. His first novel will be coming out next year. If you haven’t heard of him yet, I’m willing to bet you’ll be hearing about him soon. I, for one, am gonna be reading whatever of his I can.