I’m reading FALL, OR DODGE IN HELL by Neal Stephenson this week, and was amused to see characters refer to social media as The Miasma. Maybe a little obvious, but so was that “Dark Forest” piece that was circulating the other week, and the Miasma mixes its metaphors less.
In the early parts, there are cynically-conceived attempts to crash The Miasma – not in an INFINITE DETAILS just-fuck-the-whole-internet way, more like techbro over-engineered GAN-y game-y bot-y ways. Sociocultural accelerationism, basically, where the bad parts are ramped up and overheated until social media crashes into a wall of reality.
It’s not offered as a solution, of course, because this is a piece of fiction. But there does seem a growing sense that fiction should now be the lab for speculative solutions to The Miasma.
Personally, I’m about to declare RSS bankruptcy, edit my subscriptions and start from scratch. If you’re blogging and I know you, please drop me a note so I can make sure I’m following along. Thanks.