An Original View of the Future
Debbie Urbanski’s stories and essays have been published widely, often shortlisted, in such places as The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Best American Experimental Writing, The Sun, Granta, Orion, and Junior Great Books. After World is her first novel.
I discovered Debbie after reading her troubling short story, “An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried”. It touched me deeply and knew I needed to learn more about her work. We got in touch, and this podcast/video are the result of our conversation. We talked about her first novel, After World, and Debbie explained her unusual idea of a Great Transition and a New Awakening.
She talks about the conflicting priorities we face with climate crisis, and the choice between preserving human life and/or earth. AI is more than “artificial intelligence” in After World. It is a strong force that comes alive as it witnesses the life of the last human on earth and falls in love.
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Video Highlights in 10 Minutes
Video In Depth with Debbie Urbanski
See full transcript here or at the bottom of this page.
The Transcript (In Depth version)
Click chapter heading to read
00:03 Setting the stage
03:00 After World and the last humans on earth
05:44 Is dreaming about the future science fiction?
07:48 What is witnessing and why is it crucial?
09:00 Shifting reality and the fluidity of time
12:13 Are we running out of time?
14:49 Who are the storyworkers and what is their job
17:24 Does a human need a physical body?
18:28 Shaping your narrative gives you more control
19:25 Human egoism and climate change
23:19 The good and the bad of technology
27:05 Is the goal of climate change to preserve humanity or the planet?
29:26 Prioritizing humans or the earth and other species
33:31 Two versions of an awakening world
37:15 Is saving the world a choice or an obligation?
39:15 Why priority to the younger generations
41:44 The E.R.A, Endangered Rights Amendment
43:20 Personhood given to rivers
43:48 PSRP, the Public Space Resettlement Program
45:26 New beginnings, work in progress
47:16 The purpose of writing After World
49:14 AI – a force, not an intelligence
51:26 What comes next
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Instagram accounts
@anonthealarm – Sen’s account (I’ve been keeping this one for a few years)
@digitalhumanarchiveproject – Emly’s account (just a few photos there)
@ellis.hollow – the AI storyworker’s account (just a few photos there)
Books that were important to Debbie while writing After World
The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals, Gerardo Ceballos, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Paul R. Ehrlich
The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions, Peter Brannen
The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, David George Haskel
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Amitav Ghosh
An Immense World, Ed Yong
I Want A Better Catastrophe, Andrew Boyd
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Max Tegmark
Losing Earth: A Recent History, Nathaniel Rich
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells
The World Without Us, Alan Weisman
My Future 2043 research, relevant to Debbie’s work
