Fireside Conversation Sparked Storytelling

Control of fire and the capacity for cooking led to major anatomical and residential changes for early humans, starting more than a million years ago. However, little is known about what transpired when the day was extended by firelight. Data from the Ju/’hoan hunter-gatherers of southern Africa show major differences between day and night talk. Day talk centered on practicalities and sanctioning gossip; firelit activities centered on conversations that evoked the imagination, helped people...

 The Future History of Uplift

The active pursuit of uplift really took hold as a scientific field during the great flowering of transhuman culture, an era that also gave us the widespread settlement of space, extensive human genetic modification, nanotech, cognitive science, and the digital emulation of consciousness. It is in fact the convergence of these fields, and the feedback loops spawned between them, that enabled the uplift project to make so much headway so quickly. It’s easy to see uplift as a breathtaking cu...

 The Church is the Antithesis of Nature

Ruta Skadi stood. Her white arms gleamed in the firelight; her eyes glittered so brightly that even the farthest witch could see the play of expression on her vivid face. “Sisters,” she began, “let me tell you what is happening, and who it is that we must fight. For there is a war coming. I don’t know who will join with us, but I know whom we must fight. It is the Magisterium, the Church. For all its history- and that’s not long by our lives, but it’s many, many of theirsit’s t...