{"id":592,"date":"2009-07-31T11:53:36","date_gmt":"2009-07-31T19:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=592"},"modified":"2009-07-31T12:01:48","modified_gmt":"2009-07-31T20:01:48","slug":"anticipating-worldcon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=592","title":{"rendered":"Anticipating Worldcon"},"content":{"rendered":"

So.\u00a0 Montreal.\u00a0 Next week.\u00a0 Worldcon<\/a>.\u00a0 That thing where you spend some of your time on panels; more of your time feeling guilty about all the other panels you should be attending if you could just get your ass off the barstool; and hardly any of your time sleeping (well, except in your panels).\u00a0 I guess I’m going after all; and the organizers have me loaded up with nine events.\u00a0 Nine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I don’t know how I feel about that.\u00a0 It could eat into my barstool time.<\/p>\n

Anyway, for any of you who might be joining in the festivities, here are the details:<\/p>\n

Thu 14:00: <\/strong>What is Consciousness?<\/strong>
\nPat Cadigan, Kim Binsted, Peter Watts
\nModerator:\u00a0 Pat Cadigan
\nStudies of complex chemical systems, AI, neuroscience and MRI are beginning to find answers to this question. What are the results and what do they mean for our sense of self?
\n1:30 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Thu 19:00:\u00a0 The Future is Artificial, the Future is Intelligent!<\/strong>
\nAll Participants:\u00a0 Russell Blackford, Tom Galloway, Kim Binsted, Peter Watts
\nModerator:\u00a0 Tom Galloway
\nRay Kurzweil thinks there’s going to be a bright future for AI, Vernor Vinge thinks we’re all invited, and Bill Joy isn’t so
\nsure in either case. Why are people quoting the Unabomber Manifesto during the debate?
\n1:30 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Fri 15:30:\u00a0 Are We Conscious and Does it Matter?<\/strong>
\nDaryl Gregory, James Morrow, Kathryn Cramer, Peter Watts
\nModerator:\u00a0 Kathryn Cramer
\nWhat do we mean by consciousness? Has it become as much of a distraction as wondering whether there is a heaven? Would we act any differently if we didn’t think we were conscious? How important is the concept to fantasy and science fiction?
\n1:30 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Sat 10:00:\u00a0 Author Reading<\/strong>
\nJon Courtenay Grimwood, John Scalzi, Peter Watts
\n1:00 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Sat 15:30:\u00a0 Cross-Genre Hard SF<\/strong>
\nP. C. Hodgell, Peter Watts
\nModerator:\u00a0 Me Again.
\nDescription:\u00a0 While there are many instances of cross genre SF – horror\/fantasy, romance\/fantasy – hard SF usually isn’t involved. Why is this?
\n1:00 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Sun 11:00:\u00a0 The Singularity: O RLY?<\/strong>
\nGregory A. Wilson, Jody Lynn Nye, Paul Chafe, Walter H. Hunt, Peter Watts
\nModerator:\u00a0 Me.
\nVernor Vinge first proposed the idea of the Singularity in 1988: more than two decades on, are we measurably closer to it happening? Have the intervening years provided any evidence for or against its likelihood?
\n1:00 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Sun 17:00:\u00a0 The New Space Opera 2<\/strong>
\nBill Willingham, Cory Doctorow, James Patrick Kelly, Jay Lake, John C. Wright, Jonathan Strahan, Mike Resnick,
\nRobert Charles Wilson, Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon Williams, Tom Clegg, John Scalzi, Peter Watts, Gardner Dozois
\nThis is an informal event for most people related to The New Space Opera book.\u00a0 Jonathan Strahan, Gardner Dozois and Tom Clegg should be there at 5pm, this is a “drop-by” event for the remaining writers.
\n1:00 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Sun 21:00:\u00a0 Legitimizing the Woo<\/strong>
\nMargaret Ronald, Eoin Colfer, Peter Watts
\nModerator:\u00a0 Who the fuck knows?
\nIt is an ongoing tradition of science fiction to rehabilitate overtly fantasy tropes (vampires, zombies, fairies, god)
\nby soaking them in SFnal rationales. What are the rules for hijacking a trope from one genre and reprogramming it for another?\u00a0 And why bother?
\n1:00 hrs:min<\/p>\n

Mon 11:00:\u00a0 The Drake Equation and the Fermi Failure<\/strong>
\nAlice Bentley, Ian Tregillis, Thomas Womack, Jordin Kare, Peter Watts
\nModerator:\u00a0 Alice Bentley
\nRecent discoveries have enhanced our estimates of the number of planetary systems in the galaxy; recent analysis suggest that the silence dominating the hydrogen band may be more an artifact of signal dissipation than evidence of an empty universe. Is there any real point in describing the frequency of technological civilizations using a 7-variable equation for which 5 of the parameters are completely unknown?\u00a0 Do we even know enough to have<\/em> a reasonable debate?
\n1:00 hrs:min<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Looking at this list, I notice a few things.\u00a0 I notice, for example, that the organizers Disneyfied the title of the last item; I know this because I was the one who suggested the topic, and I’m pretty sure the title I put forth was “Drake’s\u00a0 Debacle, Fermi’s Fuckup”.\u00a0 I notice that I’m moderating the Cross-genre Hard-SF\u00a0 panel has a measly two panelists at the moment, so the audience (assuming there is<\/em> an audience) might be called upon for a mite more participation than usual.\u00a0 I note that “Legitimizing the Woo” does not have a moderator listed, but I fear it’ll end up being me because I suggested that topic too (which mean that I’d have to behave moderately on, let’s see, three<\/em> occasions in a single 5-day period).\u00a0 And I notice that I’ve been slotted in for a reading with Jon Grimwood and John Scalzi, which is good because it means that all their fans will fill the room and at least some of them will be too polite to troop out when it’s my turn.\u00a0 (I don’t usually do readings at these kind of things, for reasons which should be obvious).<\/p>\n

I’m not quite sure what to read yet.\u00a0 The thing I’d like<\/em> to read is currently in publishing limbo because of fears it might get me sued.\u00a0 I’d like some feedback on this point.<\/p>\n

But I shall leave that question for another day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So.\u00a0 Montreal.\u00a0 Next week.\u00a0 Worldcon.\u00a0 That thing where you spend some of your time on panels; more of your time feeling guilty about all the other panels you should be attending if you could just get your ass off the barstool; and hardly any of your time sleeping (well, except in your panels).\u00a0 I guess […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-road","category-public-interface"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}