Love this story. Yes, it is a bit heavy handed, but prescient in some of the ways that society has evolved in response to more and more automation. The alternate future is a bit pollyanna but worth considering.
After all the 40 hour work week isn't a law of nature either.
I've always thought the headset with Manna giving directions was just a fancy way of working from a checklist/todolist with a bit of context awareness/smarts/and gamification perhaps.
We can probably implement a "personal-Manna" with today's tech.
I always had a cynical thought -- what if, after he got the brain stem implant and entered the post scarcity voluntary cooperative paradise, his body was really right back in the warehouse doing drudge labour while he experienced a simulation of utopia?
I read this many years ago. I do think for being written in 2003 it's interesting to read again now and see in the last 20 years what parts seem more or less plausible.
I think the nice thing about science fiction is that even bad science fiction can contain within interesting ideas. Sorta like pizza, even bad pizza is pretty good.
I recall reading this and assuming it was less than a decade away.
As of 2023 This is almost precisely the scheduling system for:
-Uber/Lyft
-Target stocking
-Amazon delivery
-Amazon box packing
It’s already here. It’s pervasive and increasing in frequency and pervasiveness
I see no reason this isn’t coming to replace Project Management
GPT-6 to CTO:
“Your JIRA backlog and iteration are ready for you to start. 33 stories and I’ve prioritized them for you based on commits from previous 17 iterations, feedback from customers that were contributing user monitoring data and what was expected to meet board approved quarterly metrics. Remember, make sure that you remind all committing bots and employees to send commits to GPT-PR to review before sending to CI/CD”
Rate this iteration project plan :thumbsup: :thumbsdown:
I've read this a few times over the years. Always amusing to experience the shift from totally believable to totally absurd as the second view is presented.
How does that matter? The sentence doesn't actually say "millions of fast-food businesses", it's emphasizing the popularity of a manager/employee work relationship without being limited to fast-food.
Also, the word "business" is often used in a way that refers to particular stores or sites, rather than always meaning a top-level corporate legal-ownership entity. You can point at a local boarded-over Starbucks and say "that business closed" without meaning a global shutdown.
and I can never miss a chance to recommend "Raindrop" from Hal Clement's _Space Lash_ (originally published as _Small Changes_)
At some point in the future one hopes that a technology will be developed which allows doing more than just pillaging the earth's resources for some additional comfort/convenience/energy, agriculture and improvements on it would be that, except that by making Malthus wrong, they've just increased the number of people for whom problems need to be resolved --- computing had the potential to do this, but the discussion about taxing CPUs to fund a universal basic income or even job re-training for displaced workers never got out the gate --- solar may be the first such, but it really needs more adoption, and an implementation which doesn't depend on batteries which added a fifth item to the resources humans plunder:
and folks have been writing science fiction stories on this sort of thing since _Make Room, Make Room!_ (and the public is moderately familiar with the movie version _Soylent Green_)
What technologies or social changes offer an escape hatch?
- cold fusion?
- making limestone out of CO2 in warm moist air (needs abundant energy and either an affordable/available reagent or a new process)
- switching folks from eating beef to something else?
Related:
Manna – Two Views of Humanity's Future - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40780701 - June 2024 (1 comment)
Manna – Two Views of Humanity's Future (2003) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40446197 - May 2024 (1 comment)
Manna – Two Views of Humanity's Future (2003) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39992324 - April 2024 (2 comments)
Marshall Brain's "Manna" (2003) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39406702 - Feb 2024 (1 comment)
Manna – Two Views of Humanity’s Future - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24866389 - Oct 2020 (1 comment)
Manna by Marshall Brain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9547327 - May 2015 (1 comment)
Manna - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9206184 - March 2015 (1 comment)
Manna, Chapter One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2828736 - July 2011 (1 comment)
I'm rather surprised there hasn't been much discussion on Manna before, such a great novella.
Love this story. Yes, it is a bit heavy handed, but prescient in some of the ways that society has evolved in response to more and more automation. The alternate future is a bit pollyanna but worth considering.
After all the 40 hour work week isn't a law of nature either.
I've always thought the headset with Manna giving directions was just a fancy way of working from a checklist/todolist with a bit of context awareness/smarts/and gamification perhaps.
We can probably implement a "personal-Manna" with today's tech.
I always had a cynical thought -- what if, after he got the brain stem implant and entered the post scarcity voluntary cooperative paradise, his body was really right back in the warehouse doing drudge labour while he experienced a simulation of utopia?
You might enjoy the series Severance on Apple TV. It's one of my favorite TV shows of the past 5 years.
Ah, I should keep watching that. I don’t think I finished the first season yet. Maybe because it’s horrifying and bleak
You are in for a treat then. The last episode of season 1 is nothing short of amazing.
(2003)
This is 20yr old and wasn't that good in the first place. Star Trek and Iain Banks did it better IMHO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel)
I read this many years ago. I do think for being written in 2003 it's interesting to read again now and see in the last 20 years what parts seem more or less plausible.
I think the nice thing about science fiction is that even bad science fiction can contain within interesting ideas. Sorta like pizza, even bad pizza is pretty good.
Title updated with year.
I did not realize that it was that old.
I recall reading this and assuming it was less than a decade away.
As of 2023 This is almost precisely the scheduling system for:
-Uber/Lyft
-Target stocking
-Amazon delivery
-Amazon box packing
It’s already here. It’s pervasive and increasing in frequency and pervasiveness
I see no reason this isn’t coming to replace Project Management
GPT-6 to CTO:
“Your JIRA backlog and iteration are ready for you to start. 33 stories and I’ve prioritized them for you based on commits from previous 17 iterations, feedback from customers that were contributing user monitoring data and what was expected to meet board approved quarterly metrics. Remember, make sure that you remind all committing bots and employees to send commits to GPT-PR to review before sending to CI/CD”
Rate this iteration project plan :thumbsup: :thumbsdown:
people who like this might like ernest callenbach's "ecotopia" (from 1975), and cory doctorow's "walkaway", which cover some of the same themes.
Another fun read from Marshall Brain: "The Second Intelligent Species: How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches" available on Amazon.
I've read this a few times over the years. Always amusing to experience the shift from totally believable to totally absurd as the second view is presented.
> In the early twenty-first century, there were millions of businesses that operated in this way.
According to Ibis World there are "only" 548,062 Global fast food restaurants businesses worldwide in 2024.[1]
[1] https://www.ibisworld.com/global/number-of-businesses/global...
How does that matter? The sentence doesn't actually say "millions of fast-food businesses", it's emphasizing the popularity of a manager/employee work relationship without being limited to fast-food.
Also, the word "business" is often used in a way that refers to particular stores or sites, rather than always meaning a top-level corporate legal-ownership entity. You can point at a local boarded-over Starbucks and say "that business closed" without meaning a global shutdown.
It's a story I cite fairly often.
A few others which examine this sort of thing are:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_(novella)
- https://qntm.org/mmacevedo (originally published as: https://qntm.org/lena )
and I can never miss a chance to recommend "Raindrop" from Hal Clement's _Space Lash_ (originally published as _Small Changes_)
At some point in the future one hopes that a technology will be developed which allows doing more than just pillaging the earth's resources for some additional comfort/convenience/energy, agriculture and improvements on it would be that, except that by making Malthus wrong, they've just increased the number of people for whom problems need to be resolved --- computing had the potential to do this, but the discussion about taxing CPUs to fund a universal basic income or even job re-training for displaced workers never got out the gate --- solar may be the first such, but it really needs more adoption, and an implementation which doesn't depend on batteries which added a fifth item to the resources humans plunder:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112974899-material-world
(the newcomer is lithium, the others were sand, salt, copper, and oil)
We keep crossing tipping points which no one talks about much:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/33/
and folks have been writing science fiction stories on this sort of thing since _Make Room, Make Room!_ (and the public is moderately familiar with the movie version _Soylent Green_)
What technologies or social changes offer an escape hatch?
- cold fusion?
- making limestone out of CO2 in warm moist air (needs abundant energy and either an affordable/available reagent or a new process)
- switching folks from eating beef to something else?
- desalination (needs abundant energy, and a compleatness which will prevent issues such as: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S106422931502009X )
I was told this was a science fiction novel, but it reads more like a bulleted list of socialist talking points.
In the story, the utopia was gained by purchasing land as a group, and then sharing its resources. What a frightening concept!
"The capitalists are surely going to treat me well after they can replace my labor with robots"
[dead]