Anyone have recommendations on books that can rival the first part of Accelerando in number of prescient ideas about how the near future, pre singularity might look?

My own list is:

  Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon
  Counting Heads by David Marusek
  Nexus by Ramez Naam
  Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

But I'm always on the look out for more! The more predictive the better!

▲ le-mark 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not quite what you’re requesting but “Across Realtime” by Vernor Vinge explores ideas around the singularity. In particular it contains the short novel “Marooned in Realtime” that is completely mind blowing imo.

	▲	randallsquared 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The edition of Marooned in Realtime I read in the late eighties or around 1990 was my introduction to the concept of the Singularity, and it had an essay in the back of it by Vinge asserting that the reader would likely live to see the real thing within 30 years or so. It's remarkable that so many of that circle in the 80s and 90s were so close, even without knowing exactly what detailed technologies would enable it. Trend lines on graphs undefeated, I guess.

▲ FiatLuxDave an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A bit old but still very relevant is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants .

Rampant consumerism, a United States so dominated by corporations that there is a senator from Cocoa-Cola, and advertising so aggressive you might even prefer the world we live in... published in 1953.

▲ rbanffy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Neuromancer trilogy is great. At least post-singularity AIs appear to be uninterested in humanity.

Rudy Rucker also has a bunch of brain-benders that bent my brain so hard I can't name them.

▲ jaggederest 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Toss "Signal to Noise" and "A Signal Shattered" both by Eric S. Nylund into the pot - interesting conceptual things around biotech/selfmodification singularities in addition to the more common computational singularities.

▲ jodrellblank an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Lovestar by Andri Snaer Magnason (2012) is a good story around ubiquitous advertising, remote work, and veneration of Tech Bros and tech in everyday life gone too far.

For one example, if people are in debt, a debt collector is allowed to force their brain implants to take over their body at random to shout advertising jingles at strangers, to pay off the debt with advertising money.