The Last Evolution, by John W Campbell Jr. (1932)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27462/27462-h/27462-h.htm

by cf100clunk • 1 month ago

32 6 1 month ago

michael-ax• 1 month ago

John W. Campbell, Jr.’s "The Last Evolution" (first published in Amazing Stories, August 1932) is a highly influential piece of early hard science fiction. It represents an important conceptual milestone: it is *one of the earliest stories to explore the idea of a technological singularity*, the peaceful retirement of humanity by its own creations, and the evolution of machines into forms of pure energy.

not on our timeline, but.. still a fun/quaint read.

Contortion• 1 month ago

For anyone who isn't aware, the same author who wrote the short story the film The Thing was based on.

jauntywundrkind• 1 month ago

I've spoken with F-3 and F-4 and they both actually seemed pretty chipper about the whole thing.

They also give their thanks to the Internet Archive for doing so much to preserve the spark, for keeping the lightcone alive for so so long! Also they say to Get The Fuck Off Twitter what the hell are you fools still doing there on that lightcone-less dark site?

ViktorRay• 1 month ago

Fascinating that this story was published in 1932 and it mentions “atomic explosives” and energy that is derived from atoms.

ayongpm• 1 month ago

Really fascinating read. I ended up typesetting it in Typst. You can grab the PDF or check out the source code here:

PDF: https://aaron.beago-cirius.ts.net/media/typst/campbell_last_...

Source (.typ): https://aaron.beago-cirius.ts.net/media/typst/campbell_last_...

NetMageSCW• 1 month ago

One of my favorite authors for his Arcot Trilogy.

The Last Evolution, by John W Campbell Jr. (1932)

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