*ThiGMOO* & Marxist extropian revolution

Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Fri, 19 Nov 1999 21:03:29 -0800

>>> Maybe there should be various factions (like the extropians)
>>> under the transhumanist banner (maybe we need "social posthumans"

I've just read, with an increasing smile on my face, *ThiGMOO,* by Eugene Byrne (London: Earthlight, 1999).

A global `Marxist extropian' revolution is fomented by several hundred `erams' - `Electronic Replication of a Mind-set', also Latin for `I was'. Built in a British university Museum of Mind, but evicted from there, the sims take over a secret corporate mega-computer in Islamic revolutionary desert nation Dilmun, renaming their nano-AI LENIN (Limitless Engine of Nanotechnological INtelligence'. The revolution calls itself Thigmoo, from `the habit of speakers at trade union and Labour Party meetings to refer to unions and the party collectively as "This Great Movement of Ours".... eventually abbreviated by journalists to "Thigmoo".'

Told (unreliably) by eram Myles Burnham, gentleman pornographer. Principals include insistently reactionary Sir John Westgate, head of the History Dept, Univ. of Wessex, Dr Katharine Beckford, Curator of the Museum, eram revolutionary Harry Dillon, last human Trotskyite socialist Derek Pilbeam and his monstrously fat and gluttonous Russian bride Tatiana, various erams of diverse eras, and Xena-like game figure Ninja Princess Yolanda. Etc.

The opening is misleadingly coarse, broad Benny Hill humour. Things slowly improve. In fact, the technology at the start - cheap humanoid sexbots roaming the streets (too advanced), Myles losing control of his speech processor (insufficiently advanced) - are inconsistent with what develops, quite amusingly. Well, extropians might not be amused.

Damien Broderick