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{A Bitty Bigger World is hopepunk. Our hero, Alan Anderson, is a player in it, but not a mover and shaker. For reasons that will become apparent as the series progresses, everyone in San San can be a mover and shaker if they are willing to put in the work.]
Building construction is a hobby of mine.
Not that I build buildings. There are some people who do that. Reenactors actually use extruded "two bye fours" and engage in "stick building" but it is completely not my thing.
Understanding the anatomy of the San San arcology is my hobby. And I'm rather good at it.
You can, in theory, learn nearly any subject in the San San Arcology from AI assisted learning. Want to be a dentist? A lawyer? A Biblical scholar? Hovertank designer? 19th century seamstress? As the saying goes, 'There's an app for that.' And you will only be as good as the apps you study from.
Even in a world full of bots and what we call AI (but isn't, because full AI is banned by Protocol for Really Good Reasons), there are still situations when real people need to know things. Fast. No time to hack it out in front of a computer, post something to the Net or even Threat Trackers, or go back and do the homework.
"Welcome to Building Construction For Rescue Specialists," the prompter introduces me. It is running what we still call the zooeum, or the virtual interface through which I will be presenting today.
Everyone has taken the video and AI moderated courses. This lecture is being recorded. I am also wearing clothing. (Not everyone bothers; you can put a mask over the presenter's appearance if it bothers you. Or the presenter may appear as a koala, or even an attack helicopter.
"The most important thing to remember about San San - both the arcology itself and its governance - is that it supersumes a legacy of built structure. A person from 2023, or 1973, or 1943, would still find that many of the technologies and institutions they were familiar with exist in some form in San San today.
"So when we talk about wood frame stick build construction, we still have hundreds of thousands of single family homes in San San. When we talk about balloon frame construction, or tilt up concrete construction, or Type I metal building construction - as ancient as they all sound to a modern ear - they all still exist in San San and you may have to rescue people, fight fires or control environmental impacts in and around them.
"Those of you who are also demotechs know this. But for the rest of you - bomb technicians still train on black powder torpedoes from the First American Civil War because the ocean is big and they still wash ashore occasionally. To this day. They also train on fission weapons, not just because a fission weapon is a fusion trigger, but because the occasional hobbyist just can't resist the temptation. Just like they train on antimatter even though Protocol prohibits AM installations on Terra.
"So we still train on how to crawl through twobyfourstud construction in clothing, even though rescue specialists wear power suits in nearly all situations. Because we are the experts in how things fail, and break, and need to be fixed in a tearing hurry. The bots can do nearly anything but someone has to tell them WHAT to do.
"And sometimes, you have to make a decision that is on the edges of Protocol. We have agreements. One of the most fundamental is that human life is sacred. You can disagree but if you do, you're not going to be in a position of power to act on that disagreement.
"We agree that human life is sacred. Rescue specialists go a step further. We agree that human life is so sacred that we are willing to, on demand, risk ours to save theirs. Or, in situations that require it, give ours for theirs. Lions for lambs. Again, if you have not made that agreement, this is interesting reference material for your education but you won't be making real world life and death decisions."
I'm deliberately ignoring the flow of Net comments on the presentation, even from attendees. I may get to them later, I may not.
"Because of these agreements, San San - as a designed human environment - has an enormous amount of platform redundancy built into it to protect human life. People grow up in this arcology having no idea about many of these redundancies. Oh, most people have a vague idea of public food dispensers and medic bots and emergency cabinets. Unless you specifically ask for it, you can't experience being in the dark anywhere in San San. All you have to do is verbalize or emote a light request, and you get the light you want.
"The older structures are supplied a protected by the arcology systems. Let's consider a singlefamily as an exemplar. In the old days, say 2020s, they were transitioning from a distributed power grid to local stored power with on site generation, usually a solar array but sometimes a propane or petrogenerator. Sounds crazy, right? But they were having grid stability issues. Partly that was because they didn't have decent bots yet, but also because their priorities were totally screwed up. Pre Protocol.
"So a singlefamily today is supplied power from the San San grid. There is so much generation in the grid that we don't bother to restrict access to it, much as most water system providers stopped metering in the early 2030s. But we do pay attention to it, because no one wants a catastrophe in their back yard. There is also local generation, but we pay attention to what kind. Because for the same reason we don't pipe the legacy toilets to a nearby stream, we don't allow combustion products to be dumped into the public air.
"The most important building construction feature in San San is the pillar. If you understand pillars, you understand San San. If you don't understand pillars ... stick with me, you will.
"A pillar is a building block of the arcology.
Building construction is a hobby of mine.
Not that I build buildings. There are some people who do that. Reenactors actually use extruded "two bye fours" and engage in "stick building" but it is completely not my thing.
Understanding the anatomy of the San San arcology is my hobby. And I'm rather good at it.
You can, in theory, learn nearly any subject in the San San Arcology from AI assisted learning. Want to be a dentist? A lawyer? A Biblical scholar? Hovertank designer? 19th century seamstress? As the saying goes, 'There's an app for that.' And you will only be as good as the apps you study from.
Even in a world full of bots and what we call AI (but isn't, because full AI is banned by Protocol for Really Good Reasons), there are still situations when real people need to know things. Fast. No time to hack it out in front of a computer, post something to the Net or even Threat Trackers, or go back and do the homework.
"Welcome to Building Construction For Rescue Specialists," the prompter introduces me. It is running what we still call the zooeum, or the virtual interface through which I will be presenting today.
Everyone has taken the video and AI moderated courses. This lecture is being recorded. I am also wearing clothing. (Not everyone bothers; you can put a mask over the presenter's appearance if it bothers you. Or the presenter may appear as a koala, or even an attack helicopter.
"The most important thing to remember about San San - both the arcology itself and its governance - is that it supersumes a legacy of built structure. A person from 2023, or 1973, or 1943, would still find that many of the technologies and institutions they were familiar with exist in some form in San San today.
"So when we talk about wood frame stick build construction, we still have hundreds of thousands of single family homes in San San. When we talk about balloon frame construction, or tilt up concrete construction, or Type I metal building construction - as ancient as they all sound to a modern ear - they all still exist in San San and you may have to rescue people, fight fires or control environmental impacts in and around them.
"Those of you who are also demotechs know this. But for the rest of you - bomb technicians still train on black powder torpedoes from the First American Civil War because the ocean is big and they still wash ashore occasionally. To this day. They also train on fission weapons, not just because a fission weapon is a fusion trigger, but because the occasional hobbyist just can't resist the temptation. Just like they train on antimatter even though Protocol prohibits AM installations on Terra.
"So we still train on how to crawl through twobyfourstud construction in clothing, even though rescue specialists wear power suits in nearly all situations. Because we are the experts in how things fail, and break, and need to be fixed in a tearing hurry. The bots can do nearly anything but someone has to tell them WHAT to do.
"And sometimes, you have to make a decision that is on the edges of Protocol. We have agreements. One of the most fundamental is that human life is sacred. You can disagree but if you do, you're not going to be in a position of power to act on that disagreement.
"We agree that human life is sacred. Rescue specialists go a step further. We agree that human life is so sacred that we are willing to, on demand, risk ours to save theirs. Or, in situations that require it, give ours for theirs. Lions for lambs. Again, if you have not made that agreement, this is interesting reference material for your education but you won't be making real world life and death decisions."
I'm deliberately ignoring the flow of Net comments on the presentation, even from attendees. I may get to them later, I may not.
"Because of these agreements, San San - as a designed human environment - has an enormous amount of platform redundancy built into it to protect human life. People grow up in this arcology having no idea about many of these redundancies. Oh, most people have a vague idea of public food dispensers and medic bots and emergency cabinets. Unless you specifically ask for it, you can't experience being in the dark anywhere in San San. All you have to do is verbalize or emote a light request, and you get the light you want.
"The older structures are supplied a protected by the arcology systems. Let's consider a singlefamily as an exemplar. In the old days, say 2020s, they were transitioning from a distributed power grid to local stored power with on site generation, usually a solar array but sometimes a propane or petrogenerator. Sounds crazy, right? But they were having grid stability issues. Partly that was because they didn't have decent bots yet, but also because their priorities were totally screwed up. Pre Protocol.
"So a singlefamily today is supplied power from the San San grid. There is so much generation in the grid that we don't bother to restrict access to it, much as most water system providers stopped metering in the early 2030s. But we do pay attention to it, because no one wants a catastrophe in their back yard. There is also local generation, but we pay attention to what kind. Because for the same reason we don't pipe the legacy toilets to a nearby stream, we don't allow combustion products to be dumped into the public air.
"The most important building construction feature in San San is the pillar. If you understand pillars, you understand San San. If you don't understand pillars ... stick with me, you will.
"A pillar is a building block of the arcology.
