The book "Late Soviet Britain" by Abby Innes is a devastating critique of neoliberal economics. It also has implications about how AI is going to impact how we work and live. open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

This week's #FreeFictionFriday pick, "The Baker of Mars" by @karlschroeder.bsky.social follows Myrna, a chef serving settlers colonizing Mars. Relocation seems promising, until a visit with a friend reveals the expansion is quickly draining the planet's aquifers. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3ipli...

Now that AI is being driven by the same user-engagement algorithms that enshittified social media, we need an alternative business model. Why not take a lesson from the past, with a new kind of PDA? open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

Last week's post inspired some lively debate. I'm following up with an even more provocative idea--the question of whether quantum mechanics can tell us something about how to improve our political institutions. open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

While good people debate, bad people act. We're all concerned with finding the ground for a new social contract; but we're out of time to do that. Why not abandon that effort, and start building a pluralistic society based on the complete lack of common ground...? open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

Because the world is a bad place right now and I'm in a bad headspace, here are 5 copies of @karlschroeder.bsky.social 's _Stealing Worlds_. #KindleBookGiveAway

I took the summer off to write. Amazingly, I accomplished everything I planned for, including preparing a new short story collection for publication, and finishing the novel I've been promising. I'm back online now and resuming my newsletter, Unapocalyptic. open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

Let’s talk about an Edmonton science fiction institution -- On Spec, Canada’s most prominent English-language science fiction magazine. onspec.ca/about-on-spec

I've paused my Substack newsletter for the summer so I can focus on writing fiction. Got a novel to finish.

I've written an introduction to the 2x2 scenario-planning method, using the example of the future of the Hinterland.

Can Canada become an Arctic superpower? How could we achieve it? And--most importantly--is it worth trying? open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

kschroeder.substack.com/p/eleven-tip... I wrote my first novel "A New Faith" < tinjar.ghost.io > before I discovered @karlschroeder.bsky.social Pleasantly surprised to realize that I had inadvertently used several of his tips. #booksky #climatechange #adaptation #solarpunk #nearfuturefiction

Why does stuff happen? What ultimately causes the kind of seismic shift we’re seeing in the world today? Is it just one man? Or are impersonal historical forces at work? In the post, I presented six theories people use and use them in a worldbuilding exercise. open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

Progressives need to understand that technology is legislation if they're going to counter the MAGA-ization of everything. open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

A massive study of 50,000 households over 1,000 archaeological sites provides ample evidence that inequality is not a "natural" outgrowth of sophistication. Instead, it is a political choice. Which means, kids, that we don't have to choose it. archaeologymag.com/2025/04/stud...

Reading increases empathy. Canadian cognitive psychologist Keith Oatley called fiction 'the mind's flight simulator'.

Want to beat authoritarianism? Look to Latin America | Greg Grandin

Worldbuild with Me - Part 2: Shooting Down Flying Cars open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

📣 We're launching something BIG on May 5. The Locus Magazine 2025 IndieGoGo will bring the best of SFF to YOU—signed, illustrated, and personalized. Don't miss the drop: locusmag.com/newslet... #SFFCommunity #LocusMagazine

Strange New Worlds rewatch: Q: What does Captain Pike's fireplace burn? The ship's a closed system. A: As a closed system, it must filter out waste gases, like CO2, produced by the crew. CO2 doesn't burn. But people produce another gas that must be gathered and disposed of. And that *is* flammable.

People balk at the suggestion that we could halt global warming using available technology. Yet they seem to have no trouble buying into the idea that we could settle Mars. Which is easier, though--colonizing the red planet, or saving ours? open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

I'm proud to be in the company of so many great writers!

I've started a new series on worldbuilding, using my new novel as an example. You can follow along or join the conversation. open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...

Public broadcasting is essential to the healthy functioning of democracy. In Canada, the public broadcaster is the CBC. It is under threat. fundthecbc.ca/

Wow, that's a horrifyingly plausible implementation if the Rights Economy idea (Stealing Worlds version). I regret explaining the rest of it in detail the way I did.

HAPPENING NOW: 1000+ U.S. Jews are outside ICE headquarters in NYC demanding the release of Mahmoud Khalil and protest the Trump-Musk deportation agenda.  We are Jews for freedom and democracy saying #FreeMahmoud

A compelling argument that we aren’t approaching the “Singularity” (Acceleration beyond comprehension), but are instead on the cusp of the “Maximum”(Bespoke optimization of technology to its most complete state to fit every niche requirement).

The Technological Singularity is the worst kind of idea--the kind you can't do anything with. It's also not what's coming. But if not, then what is this weirdness that AI is dragging our society into? Welcome to the Technological Maximum. kschroeder.substack.com/p/i-am-the-v...

Something very different! Sun of Suns by @karlschroeder.bsky.social (who I just realized is on Bluesky!) One of the most unique settings I've ever seen in speculative fiction, just breathtaking. (I need to catch up on this series, there are five volumes.) www.karl-schroeder.com/the-virga-se...

For the record, this orderly handover of power had nothing to do with he-who-shall-not-be-named. It was about voter fatigue with Justin Trudeau.

Another of my ideas from Stealing Worlds can now be spotted in the wild--literally:https://phys.org/news/2025-03-scientists-advanced-forest-forests-future.amp

“If we are the niche in which AI lives, then all it has to do in order to survive is keep us talking.” - @karlschroeder.bsky.social

Interested in the intersection of science fiction and futures work? Here are some things I've learned: kschroeder.substack.com/p/eleven-tip...

Vice signalling.

Why are we optimizing AI to help programmers code faster, when what we really need is a universal assistant to augment the collective decision-making capacity of diverse groups of people? kschroeder.substack.com/p/ai-for-a-n...

Looking for a new model of democracy, and a way of injecting new energy into the social contract? Then you need to follow what's happening right now in Serbia. www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Why is it that you can know down to the microsecond when the sun will rise on March 12, 2150, but have no clue whether you'll trip walking out your front door today? No matter how good our predictive systems are, the future always holds a residue of mystery. But there are ways to manage that...

"Normal" seems more and more like lightspeed: you can get close but never quite reach it, and progress takes more energy the closer you get.

Sabine Hossenfelder talks about "solving" global warming using nuclear bombs and solar updraft towers. The nukes paper is at arxiv.org/pdf/2501.066... and her post is www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGPK... I introduced these ideas first, last year in kschroeder.substack.com/p/audacity-a.... Cite me, please

How Canadians feel right about now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEbu...

A reminder that the justifications the US is using for launching a trade war against my country are lies according to its own official government data. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

"The park and its contents will be vested as a legal person... the park will effectively own itself" (that makes me think of some of the fiction of @karlschroeder.bsky.social ) I visited Taranaki on my 2017 DUFF trip. It's an amazing mountain.

I've summarized recent discoveries about alien planets as a resource if you're writing new space opera sci-fi. open.substack.com/pub/kschroed...