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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Neoterics | ||
| Pure engineering genius on tap. |
James Kidder, as the author says, was quite a guy. He pretty much invented everything useful. For Kidder, ninety-nine percent perspiration (like Edison) was not enough.
| This, then, was the answer to his problem. He couldn't speed up mankind's intellectual advancement enough to have it teach him the things his incredible mind yearned for. he couldn't speed himself up. So he created a new race - a race which would develop and evolve so fast that it would surpass the civilization of man; and from them he would learn. They were completely in Kidder's power. Earth's normal atmosphere would poison them, as he took care to demonstrate to every fourth generation... They would make ... their little trial and error experiments hundreds of times faster than man.. He called them Neoterics and teased them into working for him. |
| Technovelgy from Microcosmic God,
by Theodore Sturgeon. Published by Galaxy in 1941 Additional resources -
|
In the story, Kidder puts the Neoterics into life-and-death situations to force them to invent what he needed. The Neoterics were imprisoned in a shatterproof, chemical-proof sealed bubble. When Kidder needed to develop stronger alloys, he arranged for them to have only lighter metals and then started dropping the ceiling on their containment bin one millimeter per day. Only by inventing new alloys and structures could they save themselves from being crushed to death. And they did it!
I was thinking about this one at the Michigan State Fair the other day. My family was looking at the exhibit for honey, with a live bee display. Handy creatures, bees; they work hard all the time and make a unique and useful product.
What if you could have a tiny hive full of creatures who could make something other than honey? What could be sweeter than brilliant ideas?
Compare to the miniature universes from Fessenden's World (1937) by Edmond Hamilton.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Microcosmic God
More Ideas
and Technology by Theodore Sturgeon
Tech news articles related to Microcosmic God
Tech news articles related to works by Theodore Sturgeon
Neoterics-related
news articles:
- E. Coli Forced To Evolve: Old Bacterium Learns New Trick
- Bacteria Torture Tests Demonstrate Evolution
- 'Evolution Chip' Automates Evolved Change
- Phage-Assisted Continuous Evolution
| Stargate $500 Billion Investment in Artificial Intelligence |
| Drone With Face Recognition Could Hunt You |
| ChatGPT Tries To Bypass Shutdown Commands |
| AI Welfare Position At Anthropic Filled By Human |
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'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
