Who Will Be Left Behind after the Singularity
By Tamara Wilhite
A heated discussion raged about when the Singularity would arrive. The believers were quite convinced it was the technological equivalent of the Rapture in Christianity. Someone asked who would take care of all the servers after everyone was gone. Another replied that the computers would take care of themselves at that point. I thought it was hilarious and added that the Amish would not join a Singularity, though they wouldn’t be taking care of server farms hosting uploaded personalities, either. That exchange is what led to my short story “A Post-Singularity Story”.
Who would be left behind as a Singularity arrives, as some choose to upload their minds to “digital heaven,” likely leaving their bodies behind?
The Greatest Conservative Films: Captain America: Civil War (2016)
By Eric M. Blake
Editor’s Note: In April of 2017 writer Eric M. Blake began a series at Western Free Press naming the “Greatest Conservative Films.” The introduction explaining the rules and indexing all films included in the series can be found here. Liberty Island will feature cross-posts of select essays from the series with the aim of encouraging discussion at this cross-roads of cinematic art with political ideology. (Click here to see the original essay. Click here to see the previously cross-posted entries on Jackie Brown, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.) If you would like join this dialogue please contact us at submissions [@] libertyislandmag.com.
New SciFi Fiction: The Fluidity of Memory
By Tamara Wilhite
I chose the avatar of myself at 25 for this meeting. I was in my prime at that point, youthful and strong, a subtle jab at her aging form without being obvious in the effort. And it would garner more respect from my sister than the teenaged avatar of myself I’d picked last week to try to relate to her kid.
My sister came alone to the meeting room this week. We shared pleasantries. Then she asked me about something, vaguely. I couldn’t understand the question, so I changed the topic. Repeatedly. She became flustered, then angry. “Don’t you remember what happened that day when you were nine, I was seven and Uncle Joe did THAT! I’m trying to talk to you because you’re the only person who I can talk to who can’t deny it, and you now you are denying it.”
“I’m not denying it. I don’t remember it,” I replied.
New SciFi Fiction: One Heck of an Upgrade
By Tamara Wilhite
I don’t remember dying the first time.
They say that’s normal for brain uploads. The process tends to scramble memories like a concussion. Well, it is worse than a concussion, since the whole brain dies while you’re uploading.
I remember the lights of the lab, the lights in front of my eyes as the neuron patterns were copied. The rest is a blur, but it was a known thing we just tried to forget though we now had perfect, digital memory. Some choose to delete that memory altogether to get on with the digital afterlife.
The second time I died, when the servers we were uploaded to be shut off, I don’t remember anything at all of the process. One moment, in the simulacrum I knew, the next, here. Wherever here was.
