I stepped out from my student’s office onto Patriarch Evtimi, where the sky was a cold, bright blue and pigeons swept up the faces of the buildings.
I’d been up for ten hours and I didn’t feel like swimming. I had to buy coffee, and I didn’t want to do that, either. I wanted to just turn left and go down the stairs into the subway. I’d read my phone on the train and go home and have a snack. I wanted someone else to buy coffee and swim for me.
But, and I know this sounds silly, I remembered a post I’d read on Substack: “Work out every day so that you can be the sort of person who works out every day.” As I walked between the cliffs of Shesti Septemvri, I repeated that to myself out loud. I hope other people thought I was on my bluetooth.
I found the coffee shop, where the bags were very small, but the grinding machine was large and impressive. The barista had an elegant little broom he used to sweep up every spilled miligram of precious grounds. That would do me for the next five days, maybe.
After that it was just one foot in front of the other all the way to the pool. Get naked, shower, swim until done, but here’s what’s strange: I wasn’t tired or hungry when I finally got home. I finished my desk work, it was now my twelfth hour awake, and I was neither stumbling nor moaning.
I was a zombie two days later, though. Thursday seemed like it lasted a week. Thank God my kids are on the spring schedule now and I don’t have to wake up every day at 6.
In other news, Upstream Reviews posted my review of the anti-litRPG Invading the System .
Another review: I wrote this one for C.M. Kosemen’s All Tomorrows, soon to be published: A Portrait of the Future
…and that started a conversation that resulted in The Future of Humanity, a little essay I wrote thinking about future of human evolution.
I posted The Ritual of Undescent, my second poem in Ancient Thracian and English, from chapter 19 of Wealthgiver.
Finally, thank you to my new $10 Patron, Anthony. He and my other patrons at that tier and above can read up to chapter 28 of Wealthgiver. Every Thursday I’ll post whatever chapters I’ve finished that week, and patrons can join me right at the coal-face.
And I read some things:
Running Lean by Ash Maurya
I’ll have to read this book again. The first revolutionary thing it says is that in the same way businesses once switched from valuing products to valuing intellectual property, the era of IP is in turn giving way to the era of the business model. Can your process produce something that attracts customers? I’m working on it.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
I first tried and failed to read Dostoyevski’s The Devils. Now that I’ve read Brothers Karamazov, I have a better idea of what he was driving at. These people are vicious, mean-spirited, self-defeating fools. Yes, and so are you, reader. Now watch: this is how you practice compassion.
The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters
Another book I first listened to 30 years ago. Ellis Peters has aged less well for me than John Mortimer - I guess because Brother Cadfel isn’t as funny as Rumpole. And although there were some action scenes, Peters’s story is so very girly. One man has a gleaming curtain of raven hair.
DanDaDan by Yukinobu Tatsu (Science Saru Studio)
One Thursday night in January, this anime absolutely wrecked me. I’ll give you the premise: teenage girl (who isn’t as much of a delinquent as she likes to pretend) gets into an argument with boy (who is exactly as much of a dweeb as he appears). He’s obsessed with UFOs, she’s embarrassed by her grandma the ghost-wrangler. After arguing about whether UFOs/ghosts are real, they challenge each-other to spend the night in a haunted service tunnel (him) and an abandoned hospital (her), where they are, respectively, possessed and abducted. That’s the first 15 minutes. You won’t get to the part that made me cry until episode 8.
And I read a draft of a book for a friend, but I can’t say more until it comes out. It was good, though ;)
See you next month.

This Thursday, paying readers will see parts of the next ritual poem in chapter 19 of Wealthgiver. Like the Andrean Prophesy, the Ritual of Un-Descent is sung in the (fictional) Ancient Thracian language. Unlike the prophesy, which was invented by Kori Chthamali in the 19th century, the Ritual of Un-Descent is old, if not ancient. Written forms of the rite date back to the 6th century AD. Its similarities to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, dated to the 7th century BC, are hotly contested by Bessian scholars.
The Ritual of Un-Descent is traditionally sung by three people, representing The Rushing One (a minor deity almost unknown outside this ritual), The Lady Reaper (also known as The Maiden and The Mistress), and The Unseen (also known as The Master and The Wealthgiver).
First, in the original Ancient Thracian:

SÉRMĒS SÓS:
Ánite! Pleistoré!
Palodegmṓn, sa e
Kḗphēt dṓe
Tḗn opdésedyde.
ÁNITĒS SÓS:
Ergeí, Porhēgéntiâ! 5

PORHĒGÉNTIÂ:
Dēmḗthera póra
Áskeira pephlóu e ion.

ÁNITĒS SÓS:
Mē dé bladymeiê iâ.
PORHĒGÉNTIÂ:
Sédzōn me tón dymón.

ÁNITĒS SÓS:
Óiyk tóus dessóis 10
Áeikhēs te eis.

PORHĒGÉNTIÂ:
Sēnséithēs tū
Éiseis is tó koú.

ÁNITĒS SÓS:
Diós Brḗthar eimî!

PORHĒGÉNTIÂ:
Xēthópats eisî! 15

ÁNITĒS SÓS:
Xēthópaniâ sezṓn

PORHĒGÉNTIÂ:
Eis sa serpanthṓn.


The meter changes from seven in lines 1-4 (sung by The Rushing One), to eight syllables per line for the conversation between The Unseen and the Lady Reaper, with the exception of lines 16 and 17 (the final line). Both of these are of seven syllables, and both are sung by the Lady Reaper.
For example, the first line (the invocation of The Unseen) is sung “A-ni-te ple-i-sto-RE!”
Long vowels (for example ē) are always sung as two syllables. Diphthongs (for example ai) are usually two syllables as well, but sometimes they are a single syllable. See the difference between eis (e-I-s) and Xēthópaniâ (“kse-THO-pan-ya”). A circumflex over a vowel indicates an on-glide, such as â (“ya”) or î (“yi”), but there is no spelling to differentiate an off-glide from a diphthong. Accented vowels are stressed.
X is pronounced “ks.” TH, KH, and PH might once have been pronounced as aspirates (tʰ, kʰ, pʰ) or as fricatives (θ, x, ɸ), but are today pronounced as normal unvoiced stops: t, k, p.

Now, the rhyming translation:
THE RUSHING ONE:
Oh, Wealth-giver! Oh, Unseen!
Host-of-many, take your queen
Welcome her below, He deems.
THE UNSEEN:
Go you now, Oh Lady Reaper!
LADY REAPER:
To my Mother 5
Un-bright robed.
THE UNSEEN
Not with smoking heart to meet her.
THE LADY REAPER
With smoke my heart is all enclosed.
UNSEEN:
Never, by the Ones who Do
Shameful will I be to you. 10
LADY REAPER
My man you are
No matter where.
THE UNSEEN
Of Sky I’m Brother!
LADY REAPER
You’re Guest-Master!
THE UNSEEN
You will be, Mistress of all 15
LADY REAPER
Mistress of all of those who crawl.


Readers have asked me to include a linguistic gloss in my literal translation:

Ánite! Pleistoré!
(neg-SEE-past.part-masc-voc WEALTH.GIVE-masc-voc)
“Oh, Unseen! Oh, Wealthgiver!”
Palodegmṓn, sa e
(MANY.HOST-agent-neu THIS EMPH)
That Host of Many
Kḗphēt dṓe
(HAVE-2nd-plur-subj ORDER-3rd)
have. This he orders.
Tḗn opdésedyde.
(THE-fem-acc UNDER.WELCOME-2nd-plur-imp)
Welcome her!
Ergeí, Porhēgéntiâ!
(GO-2nd-imp GRAIN.REAP-abst-fem)
Go, Lady Reaper!
Dēmḗthera póra
(EARTH.MOTHER-fem-acc TO)
To (the) Earth Mother.
Áskeira pephlóu e ion.
(neg-SHINE-adj-masc-gen PEPHLON-masc-gen EMPH REL-masc-acc)
The one of the un-shining pephlon.
Mē dé bladymeiê iâ.
(NOT IMP BAD.SMOKE-verb-2nd-imp IMP)
Do not “bad-smoke” at all. (i.e. “do not hold a grudge”)
Sédzōn me tón dymón.
(HOLD-1st 1st-clit THE-masc-neu SMOKE-masc-neu)
I hold my smoke.
Óiyk tóus dessóis
(NEVER THE-masc-dat-plur GOD-masc-dat-plur)
Never to the gods (the word for “god” is related to the word for “do”)
Áeikhēs te eis.
(neg-FAIR-adj-masc-nom 2nd-clit BE-1st-fut)
I will be shameful to you.
Sēnséithēs tū
(SAME.LIE.DOWN-part-adj-masc-nom 2nd-nom)
Husband you
Éiseis is tó koú.
(BE-2nd-fut REL INF WHERE)
You will be, wherever (you are).
Diós Brḗthar eimî!
(SKY-masc-gen BROTHER-masc-nom BE-1st)
I am (the) Sky’s brother!
Xēthópats eisî!
(GUEST.LORD-masc-nom BE-2nd)
You are the Guest-Master.
Xēthópaniâ sezṓn
(GUEST.LORD-fem-nom ALL-masc-plur-gen)
You, Guest-Mistress of everyone
Eis sa serpanthṓn.
(BE-1st-fut THIS CRAWL-pres-part-masc-plur-gen)
I will be of these crawling (ones)

ITo read this poem in the context of the story of Wealthgiver, you can subscribe to the story on Substack or Patreon  and wait until the end of March for the free version. Or else upgrade and read it this Thursday ;)

Yesterday on Substack I tried something new, which was to write off the cuff, with little editing, and press the “post” button without much thought. I’m doing so because this is the first spare moment I’ve had to respond to Bassoe’s response to my review of C.M. Kosemen’s soon-to-be published book All Tomorrows, and I don't want to let this interesting conversation wither on the vine.

If you had trouble following that last sentence, it’s enough that you know this: we’re talking about the evolutionary future of humanity.

The Machine-God Scenario
Bassoe talks about “machine-gods...obsessed with tending to the well-being of an inferior species” where “the only remaining selection pressure is desire to reproduce.”

Another selective pressure would be to make ourselves adorable to the machine-gods. Perhaps the gods have a template for what they consider to be human, in which case we'll only be able to evolve in ways that don't deviate from that template. I'm reminded of a Stephen Baxter story (Mayflower II) in which humans on a generation ship turn into sub-sapient animals, but they still press buttons on the control panel because that behavior is rewarded by the ship's AI.

The Super-Tech Scenario
But I agree that even without a super-tech future where all our material needs are met, the availability of contraception means that there's a selective advantage to people who don't use contraception. There are many ways for evolution to make that happen. An instinctive desire for babies or an instinctive aversion to contraception are two such ways. I remember a Zach Weinersmith cartoon where he jokes about future humans with horns on their penises that poke holes in condoms, but of course any such physical adaptation won't be able to keep up with technological innovation. We will have to want babies.

Another option is (ala Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos) that future humans aren't smart enough to use contraception.

The Artificial Womb Scenario
In this case, I think the most selected-for humans are the ones that are most efficiently produced by the artificial wombs. Maybe it's easier to pump out limbless grubs, which are fitted with cyborg arms (see John C. Wright's Myrmidons in his Count to the Eschaton Sequence). The form they take will depend on the parameters of the machines' programming. (see also Vanga-Vangog's The Endpoint)

The Collapse Scenario
I think this scenario is unlikely. If "life, uh, finds a way," then intelligence finds even more ways. When one resource runs out, we find another. The mere fact that you don’t know what the next resource is just means we haven’t found it yet.
But say for the sake of argument that there's a hard limit to technological progress (ala Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky) or science really is like mining, and it takes infinitely increasing resources to make the next marginal gain in technology. In both cases, you'd expect the graph of human advancement to look like a population when it hits carrying capacity. Exponential growth (we're doing that now) followed by a cycle of die-offs and re-growths, converging to a horizontal mean.

With no ability to innovate, natural selection would take over from technological progress. Once we’ve eaten all the meat and potatoes, there will be strong selection for people who can digest grass. I would expect humans in this case to diversify until our descendants occupy nearly every niche, absorbing most of the matter and energy available on Earth (at least). Whether these people are intelligent or not...probably not. Simon Roy seems to be hinting in this direction with his masterful comic series Men of Earth.

But I don't actually think collapse is likely. I bet that our population (and technological advancement) will not hit an asymptote, but will instead as progress according to a power law, as with the bacteria in Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiment.

The Mogul Scenario
Bessoe asks about a future in which “our cultural norms stick around indefinitely, those who generate more profit reproduce,” which I very much doubt.

In 20th century America, the more money you made, the fewer children you had. Now, it seems there's a saddle-shaped distribution, with the very poorest and the very richest women having the most children per woman. This is sure to change again, and faster than evolution can keep up. Perhaps you could say that if contraception pushes us to evolve an instinctive desire to have more children, and rich or powerful people will be in positions to gratify these instincts, then whatever traits make someone rich and powerful will be selected for.

Maybe, but now's a good time to go back to the Reich Lab's "Pervasive findings of directional selection," summarized here by the illustrious Razib Khan.

In comparing ancient to modern DNA, the Reich Lab found evidence for selective pressure in humans in Europe since the end of the Ice Age: increased intelligence, increased height, decreased organ fat, increased walking speed, decreased susceptibility to schizophrenia, increased immunity to many diseases, and, funnily, increased tendency to home-ownership and university education.

Obviously, people weren't going to college in the Chalkolithic, but whatever traits make someone likely to go to college now have been selected for since the arrival of agriculture in Europe. You can paint a plausible picture of the sort of people who were most reproductively successful in the past six thousand years, and there is even some evidence for selection in the range of 1-2 thousand years. Aside from obvious things like immunity to smallpox and Bubonic plague, Europeans have gotten paler and blonder, and more of us are able to digest lactose than in Roman times.
But the 21st century is very different from the 1st, which in turn was very different from the pre-agricultural -70th. Maybe you can say that being smart, strong, and disease resistant have always been good, and being tall and baby-faced gets you some sexual selection (almost everyone seems to have evolved shorter jaws and lost their robust brow-ridges in parallel). So we can imagine future humans who just all look gorgeous.
​
I’m running out of time, but I’ll leave us with some homework. I haven’t yet had time to read:
The Urban Future by herofan135
This messageboard discussion referenced by Bessoe
Copernican’s Ecotechnic Future
John Michael Greer’s Next Billion Years
Jack L. Chalker’s Rings of the Master
Robin Hanson’s Age of Em
CaptainStroon’s Bosun’s Journal
So, let’s expand on this. Are there any scenarios I’ve missed? Logical points or facts I’ve misplaced? Or, let’s start small, what do you think will happen in the next ten thousand years?

Upstream Reviews is back from winter break and just posted my long-form review of Invading the System by Inadvisably Compelled.

When the System came to Earth, we were well into our post-singularity utopia. We had digitally-emulated citizens, swappable GM super-bodies, and Von Neumann nanotech capable of turning anything into anything else.
Then a magical portal showed up and flooded our planet with “essence,” which broke any technology more potent than a wheelbarrow. It replaced cities with procedurally generated dungeons and opened a window in everyone’s mind telling them they could earn essence and level up if they killed their neighbors.
Fortunately, all of the fabricators, bio-forges, and computronium in the rest of the solar system still worked. The No Fun Allowed War eventually retook the Earth, but a single digital soldier embodied in a living tank decided that one planet freed was not enough. The System Must Be Destroyed.
All of the above takes place in the first sentence of the book, as “Cato,” our hero, dashes through the collapsing portal and enters the System.
​
Read the rest of the review on Upstream Reviews.