reducing the time necessary to achieve expertise. The second law followed from the first. Cephlink technology increases personal stress levels by reducing the time necessary to acquire physical experience.
In other words, the ability to download memories, knowledge, and even certain skills into people with the right implant hardware had transformed human culture in countless ways throughout the past five centuries, but perhaps the most important was the end of the notion that “adulthood” began at a certain chronological age. A formal, career-oriented education that had required eight or ten years of advanced schooling during the twenty-first century could now be downloaded over a period of months. At the same time, however, confidence, maturity, and seasoning were still products of experience. While there was no objective difference between events experienced physically and events experienced through downloads, the fact remained that someone forty standard years old had still endured, roughly, twice as much life as someone who was twenty standard.
Within the modern, cephlink-dominated military, rank was not nearly so closely linked to age as it once had been. Dev’s navy rank of captain and Katya’s equivalent army rank of colonel were not unusual for people in their late twenties. His understanding of formal space navy tactics, of leadership techniques, even of political theory was as complete as that of any of his peers… more so, in fact, than some, because he’d had the opportunity to apply his downloaded training in combat.
The downside, though, was the uncertainty that a given course of action, a given decision, a given order was right. That came with a life experience that Dev was beginning to realize he lacked. Linked to a starship’s AI, or—worse—caught up in the god-glory of a Xenolink, he felt invulnerable, superhuman.
But now, with no electronic enhancement save the program tricking his brain into accepting the reality of sunset, waves, sand, and the warmth of the girl in his arms, he felt very small indeed.
“Maybe,” Dev said, “Congress will vote the notion down.”
Chapter 7
Few technological advances have so changed the way we learn as cephlinkage. Why describe a place to students when a simple link and data download can transport them there in a fully interactive ViRsimulation?
Of course, while ViRsims can shape our thinking by providing an ideal forum for the exchange of ideas, they can do nothing about the ways in which we think.
— Man and His Works
Dr. Karl Gunther Fielding
C.E. 2488
The measure passed, 351 to 148, with 19 abstaining.
Currently, there were within the orbiting Heraklean sky-el called the Rogue 518 delegates representing various Frontier colonies in the Confederation Congress. The majority were by now dedicated to independence from the Terran Hegemony and the empire of Dai Nihon and had demonstrated that dedication by signing Sinclair’s Declaration of Reason; a minority, about two hundred or so, either remained undecided or still hoped to achieve an eventual reconciliation with Dai Nihon, perhaps within the framework of some sort of commonwealth of worlds. Those delegates who’d opposed any change at all in the Frontier worlds’ colonial status had been left behind on New America when Congress had fled that world ahead of the Imperial invasion force. Whether or not they could still be considered to be delegates of the Confederation Congress, albeit nonvoting ones, was still a matter for frequent debate.
As currently interpreted, however, the rules for passing major, policy-level measures or legislation required a two-thirds majority of those delegates present, so Operation Farstar had needed 346 yes votes to be approved. Obviously, many of the delegates who did not yet agree on the need for a complete break with the Terran government had voted yes on Farstar. Dev wondered why they’d supported the measure.
“I’d have thought,” Dev told Sinclair,
In other words, the ability to download memories, knowledge, and even certain skills into people with the right implant hardware had transformed human culture in countless ways throughout the past five centuries, but perhaps the most important was the end of the notion that “adulthood” began at a certain chronological age. A formal, career-oriented education that had required eight or ten years of advanced schooling during the twenty-first century could now be downloaded over a period of months. At the same time, however, confidence, maturity, and seasoning were still products of experience. While there was no objective difference between events experienced physically and events experienced through downloads, the fact remained that someone forty standard years old had still endured, roughly, twice as much life as someone who was twenty standard.
Within the modern, cephlink-dominated military, rank was not nearly so closely linked to age as it once had been. Dev’s navy rank of captain and Katya’s equivalent army rank of colonel were not unusual for people in their late twenties. His understanding of formal space navy tactics, of leadership techniques, even of political theory was as complete as that of any of his peers… more so, in fact, than some, because he’d had the opportunity to apply his downloaded training in combat.
The downside, though, was the uncertainty that a given course of action, a given decision, a given order was right. That came with a life experience that Dev was beginning to realize he lacked. Linked to a starship’s AI, or—worse—caught up in the god-glory of a Xenolink, he felt invulnerable, superhuman.
But now, with no electronic enhancement save the program tricking his brain into accepting the reality of sunset, waves, sand, and the warmth of the girl in his arms, he felt very small indeed.
“Maybe,” Dev said, “Congress will vote the notion down.”
Chapter 7
Few technological advances have so changed the way we learn as cephlinkage. Why describe a place to students when a simple link and data download can transport them there in a fully interactive ViRsimulation?
Of course, while ViRsims can shape our thinking by providing an ideal forum for the exchange of ideas, they can do nothing about the ways in which we think.
— Man and His Works
Dr. Karl Gunther Fielding
C.E. 2488
The measure passed, 351 to 148, with 19 abstaining.
Currently, there were within the orbiting Heraklean sky-el called the Rogue 518 delegates representing various Frontier colonies in the Confederation Congress. The majority were by now dedicated to independence from the Terran Hegemony and the empire of Dai Nihon and had demonstrated that dedication by signing Sinclair’s Declaration of Reason; a minority, about two hundred or so, either remained undecided or still hoped to achieve an eventual reconciliation with Dai Nihon, perhaps within the framework of some sort of commonwealth of worlds. Those delegates who’d opposed any change at all in the Frontier worlds’ colonial status had been left behind on New America when Congress had fled that world ahead of the Imperial invasion force. Whether or not they could still be considered to be delegates of the Confederation Congress, albeit nonvoting ones, was still a matter for frequent debate.
As currently interpreted, however, the rules for passing major, policy-level measures or legislation required a two-thirds majority of those delegates present, so Operation Farstar had needed 346 yes votes to be approved. Obviously, many of the delegates who did not yet agree on the need for a complete break with the Terran government had voted yes on Farstar. Dev wondered why they’d supported the measure.
“I’d have thought,” Dev told Sinclair,
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