✍️ Defender's notebook

🪞 White Mirror - Reading Guide

Aug 08, 20253 min read

See announcement post here: https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/white-mirror-reading-guide-pt-0

White Mirror is officially out today. Where the TV show Black Mirror is a collection of stories about what’s wrong with our world, White Mirror is stories about what our world could be.

I am offering to buy the book for people in exchange for “doing the homework” on the internet alongside me. See How to claim your free White Mirror copy.

White Mirror Discord: https://discord.gg/f7vz6R7S6H

Current recipients (6/10 open slots):

⛔️ = they ended up buying it themselves

Other folks actively reviewing the book alongside us:

🙏 = I want them to but they haven’t fully committed (yet)

The author of the book is also actively watching this, so they may weigh in or share their favorite responses etc!

Reading guide for Soaring Dreams (page 172)

Reading guide for Keeper (page 13)

TODO

Reading guide for Descendants of the Paranoid (page 19)

Reading guide for The Language of God (page 112)

TODO

Reading guide for Story Zero

Published in part 0: https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/white-mirror-reading-guide-pt-0

  1. What does Fact imitates fiction mean? In context of the previous paragraph, can you find a real example of this happening in your world1?
  2. The LLM was trained on a Borgesian corpus → this refers to Jorge Luis Borges. What is he known for? Why would Lucilius train an LLM specifically on this one author?
  3. If living in fear is a self fulfilling prophecy, and we know that, why can’t we just NOT do that anymore? What’s the bottleneck?
  4. an arms race of the imagination → do you see in what way this is a statement about our world? Can you point to an example of one person on each side of this arms race?2

Optional challenge:

Can you demonstrate your understanding of Story Zero by rewriting your own version of it? Specifically the ending.

Something short & simple, self contained, self referential that can go viral on social media. In the style of a one pager “meme” essay. See “There is no source” for inspiration.

Think of this not as explaining White Mirror, but as using the same technique. Like instead of explaining a joke, you’re riffing on it, telling another joke with the same structure.

General questions

  • Do you have a theory for why the main character’s name is Lucilius ?
    • (I don’t actually know the answer but I have some theories…)

Appendix / Notes

Footnotes

  1. bonus: see Nicky Case’s “We Become What We Behold” ↩

  2. I would put current day Yudowsky, with his upcoming book about how AI will kill us all, in the “doom hyperstition” arms race side, and Hank Green with his “book of good times” on the other side. Who are yours? ↩