If that community couldn’t sustain itself, is there reason to think a subreddit here would prosper any better?
The problem with discussion of AGI, nanotechnology, and all the other “Shock Level N” memes for N ≥ 2 is that there is no real subject matter. For the most part it’s just verbal geekery about cool ideas that no-one is actually doing anything about, because they’re too far beyond current capabilities. Fine to engage in for a while at an SF con or in a pub with other geeks, but there’s only so long you can be at a party before realising you’re just seeing the same ideas over and over and it’s time to leave.
I never read SL4 -- is that an accurate description of why it died?
As for its relation to SL4, I’d say that it sounds roughly right—I wouldn’t go as far as to say that there was “no real subject matter”, but it’s true that the list eventually ran out of worthwhile things to say that hadn’t been already discussed.
If that community couldn’t sustain itself, is there reason to think a subreddit here would prosper any better?
The problem with discussion of AGI, nanotechnology, and all the other “Shock Level N” memes for N ≥ 2 is that there is no real subject matter. For the most part it’s just verbal geekery about cool ideas that no-one is actually doing anything about, because they’re too far beyond current capabilities. Fine to engage in for a while at an SF con or in a pub with other geeks, but there’s only so long you can be at a party before realising you’re just seeing the same ideas over and over and it’s time to leave.
I never read SL4 -- is that an accurate description of why it died?
I’ve entertained a similar hypothesis myself.
As for its relation to SL4, I’d say that it sounds roughly right—I wouldn’t go as far as to say that there was “no real subject matter”, but it’s true that the list eventually ran out of worthwhile things to say that hadn’t been already discussed.