“The internet never forgets.” but the servers it runs on eventually go offline, frequently taking the data they hold with them.

"People will never have questions about our civilization. It's all been painstakingly documenting forever at the Library of Alexandria! They'll just be able to read about it"
- some guy in ancient Egypt

Raccoons aren't the only animals that have been domesticating themselves. Pandas have seemingly been doing that too. They put on the cute act because they know we like it.

There is a horror game called Soma that is all about that disconnect between uploading yourself into a computer and the continuity of the consciousness.

Some of the “first” stuff that J.R.R. Tolkien is credited for were actually first done 20 years earlier by a writer (1910s vs 1930s), poet, and playwright named Lord Dunsany.

* wrote “sword and sorcery” adventures with humans, elves, faeries and gnolls, and with knights, alchemists, witches, and demi-gods.
* earliest example of the modern quest format: dungeon crawling, boss fights, magical item and loot reward at the end.
* created his own cosmology with fantasy gods of his own creation, with dozens of complex mythological tales.
* acknowledged as a key influence by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and… (checks notes) J.R.R. Tolkien.

Why is Lord Dunsany a writer few have ever heard of, with basically no movies, TV shows, or video games based on his fantasy stories?

Lord Dunsany is a victim of poor timing, publishing most of his work before the era of the pulps, and later, mass paperbacks. Lord Dunsany also wrote many of his stories in straight up poetry (versus prose), and even when he did write prose, that lyrical style carries over (imagine a darker Lewis Carroll). Lord Dunsany’s fantasy work was also more short stories than novels. It also didn’t help his fantasy footprint that he progressed into stuff like mysteries and plays.

Where to start? “The King of Elfland’s Daughter” (1924), then maybe “The Fortress Unvanquishable Save for Sacnoth” (1908) or “How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles” (1912) (the origin of gnolls from D&D and WoW!).

Altered Carbon springs to mind. So underrated.

Going against the grain here, but I love your lightning rounds.

Yes! You must read the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Trust me. Once you start, you'll be hooked.

The animated show Pantheon also has this mind uploading premise. They call them UIs, uploaded intelligences.

10:46 the same thing happened to me with dungeon crawler carl! It went from me trying to figure out what character somebody was cosplaying to both of my parents and their friends and a lot of my friends all reading and talking about this series. It’s also the first thing that came to mind as an answer to this question because it’s a pioneer in its genre and has widespread appeal despite its uniqueness. The main thing that makes it hard to answer this question is that we don’t know how long this popularity will last

Yes. You absolutely should read Dungeon Crawler Carl. It is very much worth it.

0:10 First couple seasons were great. They were forced to wrap up the story much too quickly when they didn’t get renewed, and the last season really suffered.

SOMA is an amazing game all about the psychological horror behind the philosophy of consciousness.
Absolutely recommend it to anyone remotely interested in it 😌

Philosophically, one could argue that every time you fall asleep and your consciousness is gone, "you" cease to exist. When your body wakes up, a new consciousness has taken over with "your" memories.

11:17---- Yes! Yes! Yes! If you are like me and your not that much into reading books, do the Audible books. Jeff Hays does an incredible job with all the different voice.

Old Man's War dealt with the continuity of consciousness issue pretty well.

Altered Carbon was nuts. It's a crazy entertaining sci-fi.

I got into LitRPG with The Wandering Inn. It's massive and super intimidating to start. I only read like the first couple of volumes, but I loved it. So much that I then moved to Dungeon Crawler Carl like 2 years ago and it's crazy to me that it has blown up so much since then haha. The idea that the characters in your book can level up like a game is a super interesting addition. It's a funny book series if you want something silly and fun

8:04 the Ship of Theseus problem still makes this a real question of what is you and what is the simulation of you.

You should do a deep dive on the tongue in cheek religions like you’ve done for cults and cultures and stuff