The Light of Other Days
A Novel
by Stephen Baxter, Arthur C. Clarke · first published 2000
45% recommend53% neutral2% critical
Why HN recommends it
Sci-fi novel built on wormhole cameras that let anyone view any place and past moment, exploring how the end of privacy and secrecy reshapes society; suits readers who like tech-and-society thought experiments.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From Arthur C. Clarke, the brilliant mind that brought us 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Stephen Baxter, one of the most cogent SF writers of his generation, comes a novel of a day, not so far in the future, when the barriers of time and distance have suddenly turned to glass. When a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses cutting-edge physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times—around every corner, through every wall—the result is the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy, forever. Then the same technology proves able to look backward in tim
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For an interesting perspective on what happens when surveillance is taken to an extreme see The Light of Other Days by Stephen Baxter, synopsis by Arthur C. Clarke. In this story many people decide that as they will be watched anyway then they need not hide anything from anyone.
on “What happens when you are under constant surveillance?” ↗Different author, but sounds somewhat similar to 'The Light of Other Days' by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Although iirc correctly it starts with being able to see other locations in space but at the same time, and the historical viewing is a second development. Fantastic…
on “I record myself on audio 24x7 and use an AI to process the information” ↗Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check that book out. Once, in thread similar to this one, I saw another recommendation for The Light of Other Days (http://smile.amazon.com/Light-Other-Days-Arthur-Clarke-ebook.... It explores a world where everyone can see and hear everyone else at any (past and present) time. While I did not always find the plot…
on “This Man Has Nothing to Hide – Not Even His Email Password” ↗"Light of Other Days" is a great book but it was written by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke.
on “Gravitational Lensing to Observe Ancient Earth” ↗Clarke and Baxter also take this on in a great book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days
on “Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops” ↗I can't recommend "The Light Of Other Days" (Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter) enough for an exploration of this topic. It's a fictional novel where a specific technology gradually erodes privacy to quite an extreme level - It's very interesting…
on “Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS” ↗i recommend stephen baxter and arthur c. clarkes "the light of other days". as far as i remember it focusses more on the social than the economical impact of absolute transparency, but i still strongly recommend this excellent book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days
on “Protecting Against Leakers” ↗…different are automatically suspect. People should be careful of what they wish for. Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter wrote an interesting novel on the consequences of living in a panoptic society, The Light of Other Days.
on “Britain passed the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”” ↗> It's hard to think of a recent optimistic SF book. I believe that The Last Trumpet Project by Kevin MacArdry is fundamentally optimistic.[0] It builds on The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, which is arguably also optimistic. 0) http://anarplex.net/hosted/files/last_trumpet/LTP.pdf
on “The Rise of Dystopian Fiction” ↗…Jules Verne in 20 000 Leagues under the Sea and most likely much earlier. How about Accelerando by Charles Stross for something more recent. What about Brunner's Shockwave Rider, Karel Capek's RUR, Light Of Other Days by Baxter and Clarke. All dealing with real social issues amplified and illuminated by SF. I, and many others, could go on at seriously boring length on this subject
on “The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism” ↗Reminds me of the novel The Light of Other Days by Stephen Baxter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days I don't generally like his style, but this novel really captivated me. Without spoiling the plot (much), the end-result of everyone…
on “Stable Diffusion Public Release” ↗That idea featured briefly in the novel The Light of Other Days. Definitely worth a read.
on “Neural Codec Language Models Are Zero-Shot Text to Speech Synthesizers” ↗If you haven't yet, you should definitely read the famous little scifi story Light of Other Days. Full text: https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/slowglass.htm
on “Does light have an infinite lifetime?” ↗The light of other days, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Really cool book.
on “Gemini 2.5 Flash Image” ↗…decade, max, and you have to imagine every thing you ever do, in any place - even in the dark, is recorded. Arthur C Clarke, and Stephen Baxter wrote a book about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days Well worth reading, imho, but it does explicitely ignore the concept of a higher presence, which is noteworthy
on “Meta Ray-Ban Display” ↗