Suggestions and bullshitting thread, venting, etc. [NSFW]

A rather chilling take on how an AI apocalypse might have been experienced by an ordinary person is [Bill Hibbard’s ‘‘Message Contains No Recognizable Symbols]’’](http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/mcnrsts.html). The end there is how I expect most survivors to end up.

I’m not too keen on the idea of human survivors - if there are self-replicating, smart nanofogs (let alone mere supergenius-level AGI subsystems) then the traditional ragtag survivor band/resistance would not survive for long. The greatest advantage that might save them is that they could be totally irrelevant.
_{[ How to survive among unfriendly superintelligences (html document) ]}

||Before the Fall, the underprivileged and poor were separated from the wealthy and prosperous. Street children, orphans, the very poor, criminals often led life quite separated from the rest of society. Among them children left on the streets developed on their own, scavenging tech and information alike, and left to their own devices, made up their own explanations for the state of the world they lived in, their beliefs a mix of pop-culture, ancient mythology, and mystic interpretations of cyberspace. Some of the most ruthless and clannish groups created gangs that were separated from the rest of society they lived in most drastic way. The rest of the world were to them aliens, just like they were alien to them.

When the Fall came, the situation did change for them but they did not perceive it as cataclysm. The outside world was always trying to get them, now it just got better at it. They defended themselves as best as they could, using their knowledge of technology and war. Finally they were driven deep underground, their numbers diminished.

They lurk to this day through old access tunnels separated from the rest of the network, abandoned metro stations and sewage canals. They’re a scattered group with each gang numbering a couple of dozen members at most. To average observers they’d be extraordinarily bizarre; the number of implants, tattoos and willingness to deal with open cyberspaces rampant with dangerous–even lethal–malware makes them very separate, as does their unique language and sign gestures.

For their own part they do not distinguish themselves as very different from less technologically-oriented tribes inhabiting areas reclaimed by nature. To them sapience is the same no matter what form, and they do not distinguish the mundane, virtual, or even arcane–all three are the world in which they live. It’s been years since they had seen a non-tribal, and their legends view others as hostile anyway, although exploitable.

*The tribes could be found in underground systems, industrial complexes, and partially-active infrastructure to large metroplexes and arcologies. Their alien features make them difficult to analyze–are they leftover from pre-Fall civilizations, or warped disciples of a hidden influence? Interested parties could gain their minimal acceptance (gaining trust would be epic achievement) but only after difficult trials. Regionally, they’re found most numerously within India, China, Indonesia, the Eastern US seaboard, Pakistan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, & Mexico.*||