We need more optimistic science fiction(craig-russell.co.uk)
craig-russell.co.uk
We need more optimistic science fiction
https://craig-russell.co.uk/blog/2024-10-24-optimistic-sci-fi/
210 comments
You may be interested in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, an entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. The planet on which the dog was located then exploded, but not due to the battle fleet, instead it was because some people didn't want the planet to provide the right question to an answer they already had, but they didn't realise they didn't need to owing to the accidental interference of a dead species that had sent away all their telephone sanitisers before being wiped out in a pandemic caused by a dirty telephone.
The movie Brazil is a take on 1984 where the technology does not work very well. The thought police is not all-seeing but quite inept (although just as brutal). The plot is set off by an actual bug getting caught in a typing macine evetually causing the wrong guy to get arrested. The rebel hero is a rogue plumber who actually fixes things which are broken.
One note - in the 1984 novel the technology (or at least the product quality) didn’t work very well either. Eg the “victory” cigarettes that fall apart, or terrible coffee with a daily allocated saccharin pill.
Good point - only the tools of oppression really works in 1984, all consumer products are crap. It is suggested this is deliberate, but even that might be propaganda.
And apparently it is a common workplace injury to get ones arm caught in a novel-writing machine.
And apparently it is a common workplace injury to get ones arm caught in a novel-writing machine.
There is a science fiction story, I don’t remember who wrote it or the title, where humanity discovers a way to modify the speed of light within a region. Excited, they work incredibly hard to implement the technology, only to discover they can only make it slower.
Maybe it was jumping to a parallel universe to travel and then jumping back. But the same issue: the limit was lower.
Maybe it was jumping to a parallel universe to travel and then jumping back. But the same issue: the limit was lower.
ChatGPT suggests the story is "Local Effect" by D. L. Hughes, published in 1968.
An alien named Firefoal of Swaylone observes that human physicists mistakenly believe in a constant light speed because humanity was unknowingly situated in a region of space where the speed of light had been artificially reduced. Humans discover they can modify the speed of light but find they can only make it slower.
An alien named Firefoal of Swaylone observes that human physicists mistakenly believe in a constant light speed because humanity was unknowingly situated in a region of space where the speed of light had been artificially reduced. Humans discover they can modify the speed of light but find they can only make it slower.
Ah, the joys of trusting a LLM for story IDs...
This one actually exists (a rarity in my experience), and the plot largely matches the description up to the last sentence (though the speed isn't exactly reduced; it's made a constant)
>Humans discover they can modify the speed of light but find they can only make it slower.
That doesn't happen in the story. It ends with the aliens disabling the device (the drive of a derelict starship) generating the field that caused experiments to suggest the speed of light is constant, and then leaving, destroying "the whole basis of their physics, but that is just a fantasy anyways."
This one actually exists (a rarity in my experience), and the plot largely matches the description up to the last sentence (though the speed isn't exactly reduced; it's made a constant)
>Humans discover they can modify the speed of light but find they can only make it slower.
That doesn't happen in the story. It ends with the aliens disabling the device (the drive of a derelict starship) generating the field that caused experiments to suggest the speed of light is constant, and then leaving, destroying "the whole basis of their physics, but that is just a fantasy anyways."
Thanks! This wasn't it -- the story I read was a short short story, maybe only a page or two. It was basically:
1. Humans despaired that the stars were impossibly far away, due to lightspeed limitations
2. They realized it is possible to <do something> to get around that
3. They worked hard to try it out
4. Surprise! They made it worse/it was worse.
5. The end
Well, since light travels slower in non-vacuum space, like air or water or glass, I'd say we've already discovered that.
Something similar to this comes up in Death's End, the last book in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy.
Thanks! I haven't read it, and this was maybe forty years ago, and it was a short short story, so it has to be something else.
Hilariously, a dyson sphere operating at 5% capacity would still generate more power every second than humanity currently generates in 10,000 years.
But at even just 4%, the thermal emissions from a partial Dyson swarm would still be enough to heat Earth by twice what anthropogenic climate change has managed so far: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092702482...
"anthropogenic climate change" isn't heating the planet by literally heating it up with joules from burning stuff but by shifting the balance between absorbed and radiated heat from the sun.
The cause of the energy isn't as important as the amount.
Either way, our ecosystem heats up.
Either way, our ecosystem heats up.
Yes, and?
The same is the case with the Dyson swarm. Space goes from being empty to partially re-emitting as a warm object in our direction.
The joule heating from current human power is negligible; conversely, a 4% partial Dyson swarm directly heating the earth (i.e. not just greenhousing Sol) wouldn't be just +3 K change in equilibrium, it would be something like +24,400 K, which would vapourise and gravitationally unbind the planet.
The same is the case with the Dyson swarm. Space goes from being empty to partially re-emitting as a warm object in our direction.
The joule heating from current human power is negligible; conversely, a 4% partial Dyson swarm directly heating the earth (i.e. not just greenhousing Sol) wouldn't be just +3 K change in equilibrium, it would be something like +24,400 K, which would vapourise and gravitationally unbind the planet.
Interesting.
Luckily with that kind of energy you can do absolutely insane things, like build planet-sized sunshades or push the earth to a more distant orbit. These challenges can be engineered around.
Luckily with that kind of energy you can do absolutely insane things, like build planet-sized sunshades or push the earth to a more distant orbit. These challenges can be engineered around.
Or planet wide air conditioning to cool down the earth
Sure, but 89 % of that 5% will be still used for interplanetary yacht fleet of owner of Chocó-Darién Inc.
The remaining 11% of 5% would need about 8 seconds to generate more energy than humanity currently generates in 10,000 years.
Luminosity of the sun: ~380 yottawatts (3.8 * 10^26 watts)
Sunlight conversion efficiency of a silicon based solar panel: ~20%
A Dyson swarm around the sun built with silicon solar panels: ~76 yottawatts
A Dyson swarm around the sun where 5% of the panels work: ~3.8 yottawatts
The leftovers from a Dyson swarm around the sun where 5% of the panels work and 89% of the output has been used for interplanetary yachts: ~418 zetawatts (4.18 * 10^23 watts)
Primary power production on Earth: ~20 terawatts (2 * 10^13 watts)
10000 years times 20 terawatts is 10000 * 365.25 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 10^12 = 3.16 * 10^24 joules
Since a joule is just a watt-second, it takes 7.6 seconds for that 418 zetawatts of leftover Dyson swarm output to match up to 10,000 years of current human energy consumption.
Luminosity of the sun: ~380 yottawatts (3.8 * 10^26 watts)
Sunlight conversion efficiency of a silicon based solar panel: ~20%
A Dyson swarm around the sun built with silicon solar panels: ~76 yottawatts
A Dyson swarm around the sun where 5% of the panels work: ~3.8 yottawatts
The leftovers from a Dyson swarm around the sun where 5% of the panels work and 89% of the output has been used for interplanetary yachts: ~418 zetawatts (4.18 * 10^23 watts)
Primary power production on Earth: ~20 terawatts (2 * 10^13 watts)
10000 years times 20 terawatts is 10000 * 365.25 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 10^12 = 3.16 * 10^24 joules
Since a joule is just a watt-second, it takes 7.6 seconds for that 418 zetawatts of leftover Dyson swarm output to match up to 10,000 years of current human energy consumption.
ok so are you saying that it is so much that we need 450 more planets worth of people to be able to use that
or
you're saying that if we can harness that much energy amount/density then we can just make matter on spot and we do not have to travel anywhere anymore, because we can make gold bricks or platinum sieves in particle accelerators just for fun? (this is same argument as why alcubierre drive is nonsense, having capability to manipulate such energy density makes us not want to travel anymore)
or
you're saying that if we can harness that much energy amount/density then we can just make matter on spot and we do not have to travel anywhere anymore, because we can make gold bricks or platinum sieves in particle accelerators just for fun? (this is same argument as why alcubierre drive is nonsense, having capability to manipulate such energy density makes us not want to travel anymore)
We would find new things to do with that energy.
Making matter from energy would still be inefficient though. c^2 is a really big number.
Making matter from energy would still be inefficient though. c^2 is a really big number.
No we wont. Because if you can drive car to your weekend house 6 miles away, you wont be taking Boeing 747. If you can manipulate such insane energy density you can do anything already even before you reach that capability.
Also Dyson sphere is old school idea, new more efficient idea is to make small black hole right next to star and harvest energy from that more concentrated flow. So actually black holes colliding (gravitational waves) can be sign of civilization...
Previous post with all those calculations says that you can power 4 149 473 current earths with that amount of energy. I write this with assumption that person is correct (im lazy to calculate that by my self, but it roughly has proper orders of magnitude).
My amazon joke was sarcasm.
Also Dyson sphere is old school idea, new more efficient idea is to make small black hole right next to star and harvest energy from that more concentrated flow. So actually black holes colliding (gravitational waves) can be sign of civilization...
Previous post with all those calculations says that you can power 4 149 473 current earths with that amount of energy. I write this with assumption that person is correct (im lazy to calculate that by my self, but it roughly has proper orders of magnitude).
My amazon joke was sarcasm.
> if you can drive car to your weekend house 6 miles away, you wont be taking Boeing 747
No, you will take that elusive flying car because you can afford the energy for it now. And it will be much less efficient than a 747.
No, you will take that elusive flying car because you can afford the energy for it now. And it will be much less efficient than a 747.
It would also cost more power to construct than humanity is currently capable of generating in 10,000 years, so I am not sure what your point is.
Presumably a 5% functional Dyson sphere would be a corrupt boondoggle in the same way as a power plant which is down for maintenance 95% of the year, but the financial calculation would use much larger numerators and denominators than we are used to.
Presumably a 5% functional Dyson sphere would be a corrupt boondoggle in the same way as a power plant which is down for maintenance 95% of the year, but the financial calculation would use much larger numerators and denominators than we are used to.
I think optimistic scifi needs to lie a bit:
- allow you to exceed the speed of light, or better yet portal somewhere
- learn we are not alone in the universe
- store basically infinite energy in your hip-mounted blaster
- get the girl/guy in the end
- allow you to exceed the speed of light, or better yet portal somewhere
- learn we are not alone in the universe
- store basically infinite energy in your hip-mounted blaster
- get the girl/guy in the end
> - learn we are not alone in the universe
This is neither a message that is optimistic nor pessimistic. Isn't it much more likely that this species (despite having something that can be called "intelligence" in an appropriate sense) simply be so different that the difference is insanely much larger than between an human and an octopus?
Example:
Stanisław Lem; Solaris
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)
where the alien species is an intelligent ocean.
This is neither a message that is optimistic nor pessimistic. Isn't it much more likely that this species (despite having something that can be called "intelligence" in an appropriate sense) simply be so different that the difference is insanely much larger than between an human and an octopus?
Example:
Stanisław Lem; Solaris
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)
where the alien species is an intelligent ocean.
Everyone read Solaris.
It is of course an absolute classic, but funny to recommend in this thread, as it's probably the most pessimistic first contact story I can think of, in fact I think it raises serious questions about humans communicating successfully with each other (let alone anyone else).
> it's probably the most pessimistic first contact story I can think of
三体 by 刘慈欣 (English: "The Three-Body Problem" by Liu Cixin) is clearly a much more pessimistic first contact story. :-)
And honestly: I did not find Solaris pessimistic; for me it was just a story about a first contact that fails because humanity still has a lot of things to learn.
三体 by 刘慈欣 (English: "The Three-Body Problem" by Liu Cixin) is clearly a much more pessimistic first contact story. :-)
And honestly: I did not find Solaris pessimistic; for me it was just a story about a first contact that fails because humanity still has a lot of things to learn.
I don't know - The Three Body Problem is certainly a _bummer_ but in a way it presents a universe where all lifeforms can at least identify with eachother with respect to the desire to out-compete everyone else for resources. The aliens in TTBP are basically just people.
In Solaris we are presented with something genuinely alien to human beings with which communication is barely possible.
In Solaris we are presented with something genuinely alien to human beings with which communication is barely possible.
I think Greg Egan writes very optimistic science fiction that only really does 2 sort of. Exceeding the speed of light is, from my point of view, so absurd a premise as to make me feel that any hard science fiction which tries to get around it is not serious.
Its not that I can't enjoy that kind of science fiction, its just I can't take it seriously as having anything to do with actually reckoning with our position in the universe as human beings. Universe Big.
Its not that I can't enjoy that kind of science fiction, its just I can't take it seriously as having anything to do with actually reckoning with our position in the universe as human beings. Universe Big.
Without exceeding the speed of light, "Universe Big"... and universe too far away to explore. :(
I guess we could have a story set it the far far (far!) future...
I guess we could have a story set it the far far (far!) future...
"This is exciting! If I live to be 70 I'll get to hear the response from the question my great-grandfather's generation sent to Omega-5!"
Life extension sort of solves this problem and is much more plausible.
But life extension will be for the rich. What's the point of extending your life if you're going to be surrounded by twats like Elon Musk all day every day...?
I think the idea is that in a post-scarcity society everyone gets it.
Please note that this isn't a call for investments or request for startups.
Don’t forget this scenario:
The file with the life saving code, text, formula etc. can’t be read because the license server needed to get access doesn’t exist anymore
The file with the life saving code, text, formula etc. can’t be read because the license server needed to get access doesn’t exist anymore
I look forward to a world where people no longer need to sacrifice their curiosity to earn bread, clothes and basic housing. UBI would be a good start, but with the resources at hand we should be able to do more.
I look forward to a world where potentials are promptly discovered and put to be nurtured, instead of being wasted or randomly thrown to the society. Every one willing to share what they have learned or made are welcomed.
I look forward to a world that prevention of physical and mental illness is more recognized than treating them, or worse, extracting value from them.
I look forward to a world that citizens do not hesitate to speak out when they identify anything worrying. That is, they feel that they own the world, not be owned as some sort of human resources.
I look forward to a world that technological advance frees people, not keeping them enslaved.
I look forward to a world where monetary profit is not the dominating indicator for success and failure of an organization.
I look forward to a world where potentials are promptly discovered and put to be nurtured, instead of being wasted or randomly thrown to the society. Every one willing to share what they have learned or made are welcomed.
I look forward to a world that prevention of physical and mental illness is more recognized than treating them, or worse, extracting value from them.
I look forward to a world that citizens do not hesitate to speak out when they identify anything worrying. That is, they feel that they own the world, not be owned as some sort of human resources.
I look forward to a world that technological advance frees people, not keeping them enslaved.
I look forward to a world where monetary profit is not the dominating indicator for success and failure of an organization.
We are not the best species to achieve that, as we have selfishness in our mind. We need a mind capable of collective effort for greater good and we are just not able to do that, we are shaped to protect what we have and try to get more at the expense of others. Being truly generous and selfless is a conscious act that requires quite a bit of sacrifice.
I'm optimistic on AI enabling the passion economy helping out with this. If anyone can get their taste out there and an AI handles most of everything else (marketing, niching), people can focus on what they are good at (what they like).
I agree with all of this and hope it comes to pass. I don’t see how it’s possible without drastically changing the capitalist values that underpin our society.
I think capitalism is the best way to structure an economy, but it’s a terrible way to structure a society. Nowadays, we use capitalist values as the benchmark for what matters in almost every context, and then we wonder why our society is a dystopia.
I think capitalism is the best way to structure an economy, but it’s a terrible way to structure a society. Nowadays, we use capitalist values as the benchmark for what matters in almost every context, and then we wonder why our society is a dystopia.
Do you mean a market/profit-based economy when you say "capitalism"? Because it's becoming increasingly obvious that giving all the profit to the people with the investment capital is not a great way to structure either an economy or a society. There are other ways to harness the profit-motive than capitalism.
I agree. Capitalism definitely has its merit especially when comparing with Feudal, but then again, maybe we need something new after all those centuries.
I sincerely hope that we discover some serious alien stuffs (like TMA-1) so that humans can finally have a very good excuse to move ourselves to a new paradigm.
I sincerely hope that we discover some serious alien stuffs (like TMA-1) so that humans can finally have a very good excuse to move ourselves to a new paradigm.
These are ideals of humanism.
Optimistic science fiction shows humanity applying unique ingenuity to solve tough problems. Our lived reality today is that we already know the technical solutions to many tough problems (hunger, homelessness, many diseases, overpopulation, climate change, war) but simply refuse to apply them. Of course people don’t believe optimistic sci-fi anymore.
Star Trek the original series is usually taken as an example of optimistic sci-fi. It’s set in a faster-than-light space ship, so it’s science fiction. But the optimism came primarily from the back story: having solved our problems on Earth, and created a peaceful society of plenty, humanity turned its thoughtful minds to exploring the stars.
Does that seem like the track we are on?
Science fiction, to be optimistic today, needs to show how our society gets from here to there. Social progress was taken for granted in the latter 20th century. It’s not anymore. Something is stopping us, something beyond science and engineering. In fact whatever it is, is driving us to actively attack and destroy the science and engineering we have already developed.
A better future is going to take something else: culture, or society, or kindness, or empathy. It will take choice, and effort, not antimatter and phasers.
Star Trek the original series is usually taken as an example of optimistic sci-fi. It’s set in a faster-than-light space ship, so it’s science fiction. But the optimism came primarily from the back story: having solved our problems on Earth, and created a peaceful society of plenty, humanity turned its thoughtful minds to exploring the stars.
Does that seem like the track we are on?
Science fiction, to be optimistic today, needs to show how our society gets from here to there. Social progress was taken for granted in the latter 20th century. It’s not anymore. Something is stopping us, something beyond science and engineering. In fact whatever it is, is driving us to actively attack and destroy the science and engineering we have already developed.
A better future is going to take something else: culture, or society, or kindness, or empathy. It will take choice, and effort, not antimatter and phasers.
That negative view doesn’t match the underlying reality of the world today. We’re simply getting a closer look at just what most people are like on social media/reality TV/streaming etc. Meanwhile the past sucked.
Consider what are the major issues right now that aren’t being addressed? Global poverty is at an all time low, climate change has been met with vast investments in solar/wind/batteries/EV’s etc, there’s suddenly effective drugs for obesity, poverty’s down, medicine keeps advancing and antibiotic resistance is being slowed down by better methodologies, etc
The mainstream in the US is far more accepting than ever, remember when gay marriage was illegal? Yea interracial marriage was illegal in some areas as recently as 1967.
Not everything is improving in lockstep, but the general trends aren’t nearly as bad as you imply.
Consider what are the major issues right now that aren’t being addressed? Global poverty is at an all time low, climate change has been met with vast investments in solar/wind/batteries/EV’s etc, there’s suddenly effective drugs for obesity, poverty’s down, medicine keeps advancing and antibiotic resistance is being slowed down by better methodologies, etc
The mainstream in the US is far more accepting than ever, remember when gay marriage was illegal? Yea interracial marriage was illegal in some areas as recently as 1967.
Not everything is improving in lockstep, but the general trends aren’t nearly as bad as you imply.
Perhaps… but for a couple decades after the Berlin wall fell, it had sorta seemed like we (collectively) were figuring it out. Granted, 9/11 damaged that narrative, but that was "barbarians" attacking "civilization." The assumption was that winning the war on terror could end history the same way the fall of the Soviet bloc was supposed to.
Yet there's an expansionist land war in Europe, and US allies are engaged in ethnic cleansing in the Middle East. The current American government is overtly fascistic, and now that they've admitted they're seeking to extra-judicially imprison citizens in El Salvador, I don't think that's even up for debate anymore.
I think people are increasingly coming to believe that we'll never figure it out. Technology will advance, but humans are liable to stay the same forever. In light of this, utopian science fiction begins to feel naive. The most optimistic story we can stand is about humanity temporarily prevailing against its own worst impulses, rather than featuring the kind of… solved society that something like Star Trek envisioned.
Yet there's an expansionist land war in Europe, and US allies are engaged in ethnic cleansing in the Middle East. The current American government is overtly fascistic, and now that they've admitted they're seeking to extra-judicially imprison citizens in El Salvador, I don't think that's even up for debate anymore.
I think people are increasingly coming to believe that we'll never figure it out. Technology will advance, but humans are liable to stay the same forever. In light of this, utopian science fiction begins to feel naive. The most optimistic story we can stand is about humanity temporarily prevailing against its own worst impulses, rather than featuring the kind of… solved society that something like Star Trek envisioned.
> Perhaps… but for a couple decades after the Berlin wall fell, it had sorta seemed like we (collectively) were figuring it out.
> Yet there's an expansionist land war in Europe
Maybe you simply weren’t paying attention? There’s been several expansionist land wars in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union, it took 3 years ignoring civil wars.
“The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a struggle for independence waged by the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria against the invading Russian Federation from 1994 to 1996. After a mutually agreed on treaty and terms, the Russians withdrew until they invaded again three years later, in the Second Chechen War of 1999–2000” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War
Then there’s the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia.
It’s arguable if this is even a separate war after the initial Annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
So no there hasn’t been several decades of peace after the 1991 fall of the USSR. It’s been the same crap for centuries with different governments playing shockingly similar roles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_armed_conflicts_betwee...
> Yet there's an expansionist land war in Europe
Maybe you simply weren’t paying attention? There’s been several expansionist land wars in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union, it took 3 years ignoring civil wars.
“The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a struggle for independence waged by the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria against the invading Russian Federation from 1994 to 1996. After a mutually agreed on treaty and terms, the Russians withdrew until they invaded again three years later, in the Second Chechen War of 1999–2000” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War
Then there’s the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia.
It’s arguable if this is even a separate war after the initial Annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
So no there hasn’t been several decades of peace after the 1991 fall of the USSR. It’s been the same crap for centuries with different governments playing shockingly similar roles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_armed_conflicts_betwee...
I think that we are approaching a "solved" state of society, but that solution involves some level inequality. It is "solved" in the sense that a game of Monopoly is "solved" and approaches steady-state as one player wins. Hypernormalization is a good movie that presents this thesis.
> Consider what are the major issues right now that aren’t being addressed? Global poverty is at an all time low, climate change has been met with vast investments in solar/wind/batteries/EV’s etc, there’s suddenly effective drugs for obesity, poverty’s down, medicine keeps advancing and antibiotic resistance is being slowed down by better methodologies, etc
> The mainstream in the US is far more accepting than ever, remember when gay marriage was illegal? Yea interracial marriage was illegal in some areas as recently as 1967.
> Not everything is improving in lockstep, but the general trends aren’t nearly as bad as you imply.
Whether a lot of these changes are good/optimistic or bad/pessimistic depends a lot on your political stance.
Yes, society is very divided.
> The mainstream in the US is far more accepting than ever, remember when gay marriage was illegal? Yea interracial marriage was illegal in some areas as recently as 1967.
> Not everything is improving in lockstep, but the general trends aren’t nearly as bad as you imply.
Whether a lot of these changes are good/optimistic or bad/pessimistic depends a lot on your political stance.
Yes, society is very divided.
Are you including anything blind how accepting mainstream society is in the US in that assessment? Because there’s other examples like abortion, lower crime, etc are definitely seen as positives by the other side of the political spectrum.
Really I’m not sure what specific political ideology would measure the world as going downhill by their stated goals.
Really I’m not sure what specific political ideology would measure the world as going downhill by their stated goals.
> Our lived reality today is that we already know the technical solutions to many tough problems (hunger, homelessness, many diseases, overpopulation, climate change, war) but simply refuse to apply them.
Do we? We can do a lot for individuals, but even with cooperation, maybe can’t immediately give food and shelter to everyone, let alone fix climate change (war is fixable with cooperation, but unless I’m mistaken a very small minority of the world’s population is in a hot war). Even if we have enough resources, we also need logistics (hence why people in some areas lack clean water).
Also, Star Trek’s backstory is that humanity only started cooperating like in the show after nuclear wars. Most people would rather mutually benefit than mutually suffer (otherwise we’d have MAD), and the solutions that benefit humanity the most are mutual. Society may have backslided since the 2000s, but it’s far better now than it was before and temporary backslides happened before; humans have evolved to be altruistic because, barring death or extreme circumstances, altruistic groups win in the long term.
Do we? We can do a lot for individuals, but even with cooperation, maybe can’t immediately give food and shelter to everyone, let alone fix climate change (war is fixable with cooperation, but unless I’m mistaken a very small minority of the world’s population is in a hot war). Even if we have enough resources, we also need logistics (hence why people in some areas lack clean water).
Also, Star Trek’s backstory is that humanity only started cooperating like in the show after nuclear wars. Most people would rather mutually benefit than mutually suffer (otherwise we’d have MAD), and the solutions that benefit humanity the most are mutual. Society may have backslided since the 2000s, but it’s far better now than it was before and temporary backslides happened before; humans have evolved to be altruistic because, barring death or extreme circumstances, altruistic groups win in the long term.
We could, though. Absolutely. Literally feeding all the starving people in the world would cost a fraction of the world's surplus wealth, and a briefly disruptive but manageable readjustment of global logistics. The rest of it would be costly, but still totally doable at the cost of some inconvenience for the world's top 10%.
The problem isn't lack of solutions. It's lack of cooperation on every level from individuals to organizations to social groups to nations to transnational organizations.
The problem isn't lack of solutions. It's lack of cooperation on every level from individuals to organizations to social groups to nations to transnational organizations.
> We can do a lot for individuals, but even with cooperation, maybe can’t immediately give food and shelter to everyone
It oddly isn't all that desirable. You don't want to depend entirely on the generosity of others. What you want is a fighting chance to take care of yourself. Helping there, even a little bit is both very effective and very easy.
It oddly isn't all that desirable. You don't want to depend entirely on the generosity of others. What you want is a fighting chance to take care of yourself. Helping there, even a little bit is both very effective and very easy.
> You don't want to depend entirely on the generosity of others.
Spoken like someone who knows they'll eat today.
End game, yes, everyone needs a degree of autonomy. But there are plenty of families in Palestine and Ukraine and Nigeria that just need food, today.
Spoken like someone who knows they'll eat today.
End game, yes, everyone needs a degree of autonomy. But there are plenty of families in Palestine and Ukraine and Nigeria that just need food, today.
It's not either/or. We can provide both jobs and a safety net.
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Well all I can say is I did exactly that and produced an optimistic 370,000 word Sci-fi series which was totally utopian, and tried to be realistic and scientific (at least up to the point that any Sci-Fi novel could be) - https://rodyne.com/?p=1252
> (hunger, homelessness, many diseases, overpopulation, climate change, war)
This is a profoundly, even comically, contradictory set.
You cannot actually "solve" any half of these without causing the other half.
This is a profoundly, even comically, contradictory set.
You cannot actually "solve" any half of these without causing the other half.
How would access to food and freedom from hunger, sickness, and homelessness cause war and climate change? We already have enough food; it's poorly distributed. Medicinal challenges aren't solved with substantially more energy; they're solved with more information. Housing: plenty of room on this planet, just not situated between your San Fran tech job and the mall.
War and climate change are not caused by full bellies and healthy spleens, as you claim.
Overpopulation is the last problem to solve, and reproduction trends downwards in affluent, well-educated countries. So, possibly even that is solved by these three benefits.
War and climate change are not caused by full bellies and healthy spleens, as you claim.
Overpopulation is the last problem to solve, and reproduction trends downwards in affluent, well-educated countries. So, possibly even that is solved by these three benefits.
Not with that attitude, no. Why so pessimistic?
Is the purpose of mankind to support drug-addled hobos?
Yes, at least proximately. If you walked up to anyone on the street and asked them, "should we help desperate people," they'd say yes. This isn't even controversial.
I am not opposed to helping homeless people, I'm opposed to this idea that humanity's main purpose is essentially to harbor as many people as possible who have no agency. I think that we should have greater goals far beyond that. Art, science, exploration. I don't know, take your pick.
Thanks to GMOs and the industrial revolution we have more food than any point other point in history. Almost no one works in agriculture anymore. In the USA we have food stamps and who knows how many pounds of government cheese preserved in case of an emergency. Who is still dying of hunger?
Thanks to vaccines and modern medicine, disease is hardly a problem anymore (with the exception of cancer, heart disease and other problems largely associated with OLD AGE). Who is really dying of preventable diseases anymore?
Still, we're told that hunger and disease must be eradicated before we do anything of importance. At what point can we say that we have done enough?
The homeless people i've interacted with are the bottom of the barrel of humanity, and are typically held back by serious mental illness or drug addiction. They don't have some rich inner world, they are just a blight on the public. The homeless largely drive people to avoid public parks or transportation. Why don't we have public transport anymore in America? Is it really logistically impossible, or is it simply that anyone who can afford to will avoid riding a train or a bus with deranged homeless people? We have public libraries, but they're not shrines to knowledge or places of public gathering as they effectively serve as an air-conditioned building for homeless people to jack off. And you know what, I don't blame them, they are merely individuals at the mercy of this incomprehensible brave new world we are building around them.
There's this star trek idea we have been fed that once we eliminate human need, there will be no more human suffering and we will all be free to do "more enlightened things". We already have a surplus of pretty much everything, and the result is that we are a society of wireheads, our lives lonelier and more meaningless than ever. How would this be improved by further star-trek technology? Holodeck, simulate a hundred prostitutes. Replicator, make me one hundred pounds of crack cocaine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUnu_U2yKXY).
When you look at the kinds of people who went out and explored the new world, it was always the groups of people that were most dissatisfied with society, the pilgrims, the prisoners and such. Those are the groups willing to take a chance for freedom and prosperity. I don't think the future of humanity will be like star trek, it will be more like the ender's game series where the explorers of new frontiers will be venezuelans or brazilians whatever 2nd-world groups of people who are currently having a bad time on earth, but still have the skills and resolve to explore beyond that. I think happiness itself is orthogonal to a having meaningful life, and we shouldn't pursue it directly.
I don't think the solution for drug addicts is more narcan. I think the solution for drug addicts is mortal danger. For the majority of human history, people did not live long enough for their vices to catch up to them. I would liken my attitudes towards the homeless to factory farming: even if the goal is to make the cows as happy as possible, the factory farm is still wrong. It's better to be a free, self-sustaining, wild animal, even if you are suffering than to be a happy cow on a factory farm.
Thanks to GMOs and the industrial revolution we have more food than any point other point in history. Almost no one works in agriculture anymore. In the USA we have food stamps and who knows how many pounds of government cheese preserved in case of an emergency. Who is still dying of hunger?
Thanks to vaccines and modern medicine, disease is hardly a problem anymore (with the exception of cancer, heart disease and other problems largely associated with OLD AGE). Who is really dying of preventable diseases anymore?
Still, we're told that hunger and disease must be eradicated before we do anything of importance. At what point can we say that we have done enough?
The homeless people i've interacted with are the bottom of the barrel of humanity, and are typically held back by serious mental illness or drug addiction. They don't have some rich inner world, they are just a blight on the public. The homeless largely drive people to avoid public parks or transportation. Why don't we have public transport anymore in America? Is it really logistically impossible, or is it simply that anyone who can afford to will avoid riding a train or a bus with deranged homeless people? We have public libraries, but they're not shrines to knowledge or places of public gathering as they effectively serve as an air-conditioned building for homeless people to jack off. And you know what, I don't blame them, they are merely individuals at the mercy of this incomprehensible brave new world we are building around them.
There's this star trek idea we have been fed that once we eliminate human need, there will be no more human suffering and we will all be free to do "more enlightened things". We already have a surplus of pretty much everything, and the result is that we are a society of wireheads, our lives lonelier and more meaningless than ever. How would this be improved by further star-trek technology? Holodeck, simulate a hundred prostitutes. Replicator, make me one hundred pounds of crack cocaine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUnu_U2yKXY).
When you look at the kinds of people who went out and explored the new world, it was always the groups of people that were most dissatisfied with society, the pilgrims, the prisoners and such. Those are the groups willing to take a chance for freedom and prosperity. I don't think the future of humanity will be like star trek, it will be more like the ender's game series where the explorers of new frontiers will be venezuelans or brazilians whatever 2nd-world groups of people who are currently having a bad time on earth, but still have the skills and resolve to explore beyond that. I think happiness itself is orthogonal to a having meaningful life, and we shouldn't pursue it directly.
I don't think the solution for drug addicts is more narcan. I think the solution for drug addicts is mortal danger. For the majority of human history, people did not live long enough for their vices to catch up to them. I would liken my attitudes towards the homeless to factory farming: even if the goal is to make the cows as happy as possible, the factory farm is still wrong. It's better to be a free, self-sustaining, wild animal, even if you are suffering than to be a happy cow on a factory farm.
Why do you think that it would be impossible to make a society where
a) everyone gets to live like a king, unconditionally, from birth to death, and
b) people have the freedom to do and pursue what they want?
I don't see "some % of the population becoming lazy couch-living larvae" as a problem, because if they truly are "destined" to become that due to their inherent brain formation or whatever, then they were always going to do that no matter what (or drift off homeless in the streets in today's society). The only reason that's a bad thing is that society would then be missing a person who, in different circumstances, would be contributing with labor. But since in this hypothetical future utopia human labor is no longer needed, and that % of people were always going to be lazy or whatever, then there's no loss to be had by simply letting them be!
a) everyone gets to live like a king, unconditionally, from birth to death, and
b) people have the freedom to do and pursue what they want?
I don't see "some % of the population becoming lazy couch-living larvae" as a problem, because if they truly are "destined" to become that due to their inherent brain formation or whatever, then they were always going to do that no matter what (or drift off homeless in the streets in today's society). The only reason that's a bad thing is that society would then be missing a person who, in different circumstances, would be contributing with labor. But since in this hypothetical future utopia human labor is no longer needed, and that % of people were always going to be lazy or whatever, then there's no loss to be had by simply letting them be!
You never hear people talk about what slavery did for homelessness. One can be quite deranged, if a mean and a bed are provided and we beat you with a stick you are motivated to do the manual labor. It is also a sound method to overcome addiction. If pampered people living the good life cant quit smoking, stop drinking, cant quit Valium, cant stop eating. What would it be like to wake up under the bridge with an empty stomach and a crack addiction?
I wont try to sell forced labor but if I had to chose between Fentanyl and picking cotton it would be a rather easy choice.
I wont try to sell forced labor but if I had to chose between Fentanyl and picking cotton it would be a rather easy choice.
Fortunately that choice is pure fiction.
No one has ever solved addiction with slavery, as you suggest. Just the opposite: many addicts have been forced by their addiction and circumstances into sex work, and some abducted sex slaves have been forced into addiction to control them.
You seem to have a rich fantasy about what life is like for the impoverished and addicted.
No one has ever solved addiction with slavery, as you suggest. Just the opposite: many addicts have been forced by their addiction and circumstances into sex work, and some abducted sex slaves have been forced into addiction to control them.
You seem to have a rich fantasy about what life is like for the impoverished and addicted.
Slavery is perhaps the wrong term.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment
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This is just slavery fanfiction. Mentally ill, uncooperative slaves would more likely have been killed to "send a message" to the others, and I expect functional addiction would be encouraged for manual labourers so long as it didn't harm productivity. I don't know what would lead you to draw assumptions like this (well, beyond the obvious).
I find it quite paradoxical how a person making great effort towards taking care of themself can some how turn out worse than care from someone who doesn't care about you.
We've made a lot of progress collectively and want to help everyone but end up doing a pretty crappy job.
I know some people who aren't doing very well mentally and do some substance abuse. Their job preserves what little sanity they have left. The periods between jobs are sheer terror, they almost die and might lose their home.
We've made a lot of progress collectively and want to help everyone but end up doing a pretty crappy job.
I know some people who aren't doing very well mentally and do some substance abuse. Their job preserves what little sanity they have left. The periods between jobs are sheer terror, they almost die and might lose their home.
Is providing better mental health care for people off the table?
> harbor as many people as possible who have no agency'
> Art, science, exploration. I don't know, take your pick
What's the point of art, then? Consuming art isn't "agentic," and the point of producing it is consumption. Ditto exploration—does discovered land serve any purpose in and of itself? Or is the point to see it and to live in it? And science—consider medicine. The discovery of a new medication itself is not the point; the point is that people take it and become better, which is not agentic.
Agency is a means to an end, and that end is experience. You can't justify life, individual or collective, in terms of agency.
> Still, we're told that hunger and disease must be eradicated before we do anything of importance.
Gee, I was unaware that we "hadn't been doing anything important" for the past 40,000 years of civilization.
> The homeless people i've interacted with [...] don't have some rich inner world
I don't honestly believe you've interacted with many homeless people that closely. I think you see them from a distance and assume they're basically urban wildlife. Mental health issues are not the obstacle to participation in society that you seem to think they are, and anyway, only a minority have mental health issues. And substance abuse—frankly, if I were homeless, I would probably take a lot of drugs too. What else am I going to do?
Homelessness is an extremely fixable issue, and countries that have supplied homeless people with long-term housing have seen their homeless populations vanish overnight. Obviously. What they're missing is homes. It's extremely difficult to get back on your feet without one, and the shelter system is completely inadequate.
> We already have a surplus of pretty much everything, and the result is that we are a society of wireheads
Do you have any idea how much rent costs in a big city? How much groceries cost? What are you talking about.
> I think happiness itself is orthogonal to a having meaningful life, and we shouldn't pursue it directly.
Then what's the point of living meaningfully? It doesn't sound like it's good for anything. "Meaning" gets thrown around a lot to indicate things we want to defend but cannot really justify on their own merits.
> Art, science, exploration. I don't know, take your pick
What's the point of art, then? Consuming art isn't "agentic," and the point of producing it is consumption. Ditto exploration—does discovered land serve any purpose in and of itself? Or is the point to see it and to live in it? And science—consider medicine. The discovery of a new medication itself is not the point; the point is that people take it and become better, which is not agentic.
Agency is a means to an end, and that end is experience. You can't justify life, individual or collective, in terms of agency.
> Still, we're told that hunger and disease must be eradicated before we do anything of importance.
Gee, I was unaware that we "hadn't been doing anything important" for the past 40,000 years of civilization.
> The homeless people i've interacted with [...] don't have some rich inner world
I don't honestly believe you've interacted with many homeless people that closely. I think you see them from a distance and assume they're basically urban wildlife. Mental health issues are not the obstacle to participation in society that you seem to think they are, and anyway, only a minority have mental health issues. And substance abuse—frankly, if I were homeless, I would probably take a lot of drugs too. What else am I going to do?
Homelessness is an extremely fixable issue, and countries that have supplied homeless people with long-term housing have seen their homeless populations vanish overnight. Obviously. What they're missing is homes. It's extremely difficult to get back on your feet without one, and the shelter system is completely inadequate.
> We already have a surplus of pretty much everything, and the result is that we are a society of wireheads
Do you have any idea how much rent costs in a big city? How much groceries cost? What are you talking about.
> I think happiness itself is orthogonal to a having meaningful life, and we shouldn't pursue it directly.
Then what's the point of living meaningfully? It doesn't sound like it's good for anything. "Meaning" gets thrown around a lot to indicate things we want to defend but cannot really justify on their own merits.
Are they my relatives? Are they desperate because their own preventable actions? Will you steal from me to help them?
> Will you steal from me to help them?
Oh, like Robin Hood?
I assume you're talking about taxes, but even literal theft in this context is the stuff of heroic folktales.
Oh, like Robin Hood?
I assume you're talking about taxes, but even literal theft in this context is the stuff of heroic folktales.
This reminds me of a related quote from Ursula K. Le Guin:
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
Of course, that particular story later turns out to be a classic, boring dystopia, but only because we, the readers, refuse to accept the narrator's original premise of a prosperous and just society free of tradeoffs or caveats.
This is why I like her books so much, though. I don't know if the worlds she created are truly optimistic or possible at all, but at least she makes us imagine alternative ways for society to be organized.
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
Of course, that particular story later turns out to be a classic, boring dystopia, but only because we, the readers, refuse to accept the narrator's original premise of a prosperous and just society free of tradeoffs or caveats.
This is why I like her books so much, though. I don't know if the worlds she created are truly optimistic or possible at all, but at least she makes us imagine alternative ways for society to be organized.
Jerry Holkins of penny-arcade recently shared a similar sentiment.
> You can't operate a deconstruction machine indefinitely; ultimately, the machine is all you have left to take apart. We need to make aspirational shit again so we have something to deconstruct later. It's not a mysterious process, it's just the opposite of what we were doing before.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2025/02/28/opfor
> You can't operate a deconstruction machine indefinitely; ultimately, the machine is all you have left to take apart. We need to make aspirational shit again so we have something to deconstruct later. It's not a mysterious process, it's just the opposite of what we were doing before.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2025/02/28/opfor
The problem with that sentiment is that cynicism isn't deconstruction. It's often an accurate assessment of current trends and a prediction of where they might lead, not a collapse into abstractions.
On the other hand, pining for "aspirational" works is the real collapse into abstractions and magical, associative thinking: get rid of the bad and bring in the good, sad is bad. A lot of people have the aspiration of wiping out entire cultures; idealizing aspirations is nothing but idealizing desires, and in a commercial environment that just means pandering to middle-class power fantasies.
In short, I accuse this sentiment of being a covert desire to deconstruct the present in order to quiet middle class fears. "Actually what we've been doing will work! If we ever need to change course, I'm sure we will. We'll defeat the evil."
On the other hand, pining for "aspirational" works is the real collapse into abstractions and magical, associative thinking: get rid of the bad and bring in the good, sad is bad. A lot of people have the aspiration of wiping out entire cultures; idealizing aspirations is nothing but idealizing desires, and in a commercial environment that just means pandering to middle-class power fantasies.
In short, I accuse this sentiment of being a covert desire to deconstruct the present in order to quiet middle class fears. "Actually what we've been doing will work! If we ever need to change course, I'm sure we will. We'll defeat the evil."
The "optimistic" science fiction that people are pining for was written during the World War period, during the social unrest of the 1960s, during the inflation and oil shock of the 1970s, during periods of racial violence, during the heights of the Cold War (the Fallout series came from real societal trama, not just a neat schtick about putting a 1950s face on disaster movies), during environmental scares, nuclear disasters, terrorism, during social upheavals and economic crises and international crises.
The 20th century was not a cakewalk either. I'm not saying it was or was not better than today, I am saying, "gee there's an awful lot of reasons to be depressed" isn't new.
The 20th century was not a cakewalk either. I'm not saying it was or was not better than today, I am saying, "gee there's an awful lot of reasons to be depressed" isn't new.
Applied cynicism is deconstruction in the sense that all that is being offered is criticism and disbelief in a thing. There is no message of doing something else because it is better, only a message to do something else because it isn't the thing the cynicism is targeting. Sometimes not even an alternative is offered. The thing just sucks and it shouldn't be done, according to the critic.
You will notice how in current political conversations that no matter what the problem being discussed is, the solution is almost always the destruction of something or someone. There's this stubborn perspective that X would be resolved if we could just somehow eliminate Y.
To be crude, the pattern I described isn't aspirational, it's bitchy. You'll also notice how very little gets accomplished in the current cynical environment for the same reason that nagging people doesn't motivate them as much as inspiring them does.
You will notice how in current political conversations that no matter what the problem being discussed is, the solution is almost always the destruction of something or someone. There's this stubborn perspective that X would be resolved if we could just somehow eliminate Y.
To be crude, the pattern I described isn't aspirational, it's bitchy. You'll also notice how very little gets accomplished in the current cynical environment for the same reason that nagging people doesn't motivate them as much as inspiring them does.
OK, we know what's coming.
- Energy is less of a problem, between cheap solar cells and batteries.
- Materials may start to be a problem, but not yet.
- Population is leveling off and dropping in some countries, but continues to grow in Africa and among the religious groups which keep women at home.
- Equatorial areas are becoming uninhabitable.
- AI is rapidly getting better. Not clear how good it gets, but if everything you do for money goes in and out over a wire, you're in trouble.
- Robots for unstructured tasks are just beginning to work. Maybe. The mechanical problems of building robots have been pretty much solved. Motors, sensors, controllers, etc. work well and are not too expensive. There are well over a dozen humanoid robots that can walk now. (Unlike the days of Asimo, which barely worked over two decades of improvement.)
- Automatic driving is being deployed now.
So how do we build a society to deal with that?
- Energy is less of a problem, between cheap solar cells and batteries.
- Materials may start to be a problem, but not yet.
- Population is leveling off and dropping in some countries, but continues to grow in Africa and among the religious groups which keep women at home.
- Equatorial areas are becoming uninhabitable.
- AI is rapidly getting better. Not clear how good it gets, but if everything you do for money goes in and out over a wire, you're in trouble.
- Robots for unstructured tasks are just beginning to work. Maybe. The mechanical problems of building robots have been pretty much solved. Motors, sensors, controllers, etc. work well and are not too expensive. There are well over a dozen humanoid robots that can walk now. (Unlike the days of Asimo, which barely worked over two decades of improvement.)
- Automatic driving is being deployed now.
So how do we build a society to deal with that?
- Population is leveling off and dropping in some countries,
This is a problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk
- AI is rapidly getting better. Not clear how good it gets, but if everything you do for money goes in and out over a wire, you're in trouble.
Or, everything gets so abundant that we can actually have high UBI
This reminds me if why I disliked to movie Elysium. They had a robots that effectively gave free perfect medical care. I didn't buy the premise of the movie that only that rich would be able to use them. Given they were robots, governments, hospitals, could and would make them readily available since ultimately it would massively lower their medical costs.
This is a problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk
- AI is rapidly getting better. Not clear how good it gets, but if everything you do for money goes in and out over a wire, you're in trouble.
Or, everything gets so abundant that we can actually have high UBI
This reminds me if why I disliked to movie Elysium. They had a robots that effectively gave free perfect medical care. I didn't buy the premise of the movie that only that rich would be able to use them. Given they were robots, governments, hospitals, could and would make them readily available since ultimately it would massively lower their medical costs.
I think elysium isn't an effective sci-fi in the sense that it discusses the effect of technology on mankind. It is just a metaphor for the US/Mexico border.
The only takeaway I got from the movie is that the robots look cool, it's the same robot design from chappie. Both half-baked scifi movies, but I would like to imagine they both exist in the same world.
The only takeaway I got from the movie is that the robots look cool, it's the same robot design from chappie. Both half-baked scifi movies, but I would like to imagine they both exist in the same world.
>I didn't buy the premise of the movie that only that rich would be able to use them. Given they were robots, governments, hospitals, could and would make them readily available since ultimately it would massively lower their medical costs.
Given Big Pharma's current ability to get lots and lots of money for vital medicine, I'm not optimistic they'd price a theoretical medical machine low enough for a government to afford.
Plus, if overpopulation is a concern, a wealthy person wouldn't necessarily want the machine to get into the hands of everyone. Given that the creator of this machine would become very wealthy, the incentives would probably lean towards offering it to a select group.
Given Big Pharma's current ability to get lots and lots of money for vital medicine, I'm not optimistic they'd price a theoretical medical machine low enough for a government to afford.
Plus, if overpopulation is a concern, a wealthy person wouldn't necessarily want the machine to get into the hands of everyone. Given that the creator of this machine would become very wealthy, the incentives would probably lean towards offering it to a select group.
Big pharma usually only gets big money until the patents run out. Today's expensive treatment is relatively cheap a generation from now.
I realize that sometimes there are situations where this doesn't hold.
I realize that sometimes there are situations where this doesn't hold.
Nearly every edifice of modern society relies on the tacit consent of other people. Pharma needs patent laws and a whole market economy to function.
"One wealthy person controls everyone with robots" basically ends up with one wealthy person alone with some robots.
"One wealthy person controls everyone with robots" basically ends up with one wealthy person alone with some robots.
>Pharma needs patent laws and a whole market economy to function.
I agree in general with this sentiment. However, I think that "medical robot that can cure anything" isn't something you'd patent (as you'd have to make some of the details public). I imagine you'd keep it as a trade secret and only license the machine for use by your own technicians or something along those lines.
I do think that the key assumptions for this scenario are that companies become as powerful (if not more powerful) than countries, and the incentives change such that withholding medical care is beneficial to the wealthy.
Do I think this is the most likely outcome? No. But I think that current countries with partially starving populations are a "worst-case" scenario for what a society dealing with scarcity looks like.
I agree in general with this sentiment. However, I think that "medical robot that can cure anything" isn't something you'd patent (as you'd have to make some of the details public). I imagine you'd keep it as a trade secret and only license the machine for use by your own technicians or something along those lines.
I do think that the key assumptions for this scenario are that companies become as powerful (if not more powerful) than countries, and the incentives change such that withholding medical care is beneficial to the wealthy.
Do I think this is the most likely outcome? No. But I think that current countries with partially starving populations are a "worst-case" scenario for what a society dealing with scarcity looks like.
> Or, everything gets so abundant that we can actually have high UBI
Now, that's not as clear. Reaching the point that all the essential tasks to keep society going can be done cost-effectively by robots is quite a ways off.
Now, that's not as clear. Reaching the point that all the essential tasks to keep society going can be done cost-effectively by robots is quite a ways off.
you assume their compotence and forethought. Such things cannot be taken for granted.
actually materials may be not a problem, - 40% of all transport is for transporting of fossil fuels !
so after we lower amount of fossil fuels mined, transported, refined, we can start focusing on working with other materials or start using freed workforce/manufacturing capacity for other kinds of terraforming activities.
AI - how many connections in human brain? google says 100 trillion, how many transistors in one NVIDIA Blackwell GPU - 200 billion. so you need just 500 GPUs to have number of connections as brain does. those are transistors only for connections, you need much more transistors for processing which is connected thru said connections, so does one datacenter holds one brain worth of biological level processing already ?
so after we lower amount of fossil fuels mined, transported, refined, we can start focusing on working with other materials or start using freed workforce/manufacturing capacity for other kinds of terraforming activities.
AI - how many connections in human brain? google says 100 trillion, how many transistors in one NVIDIA Blackwell GPU - 200 billion. so you need just 500 GPUs to have number of connections as brain does. those are transistors only for connections, you need much more transistors for processing which is connected thru said connections, so does one datacenter holds one brain worth of biological level processing already ?
Step 1: kindergarten through university simulator-based training for remedial omnipotence.
An essay on optimistic science fiction but no discussion of Iain M. Banks’ The Culture series…? for that matter, it doesn’t mention any specific sci fi writer at all.
The difference between science fiction and fantasy is feeling that it might become possible somewhat, or that it is consistent. In present world our culture has advanced enough to rule out or at least make it too complex things like FTL or time travel, and our current civilization struggles don't put in a good way long term perspectives.
Somewhat aliens are not the saviors anymore, it is complex to impossible to travel, and worse, colonize, anywhere else in the universe, and the bringer of doom is already here, now, and it is us.
What is left? Going virtual and living in a digital world? Lena ( https://qntm.org/mmacevedo ) ended with that.
Somewhat aliens are not the saviors anymore, it is complex to impossible to travel, and worse, colonize, anywhere else in the universe, and the bringer of doom is already here, now, and it is us.
What is left? Going virtual and living in a digital world? Lena ( https://qntm.org/mmacevedo ) ended with that.
Unpopular take, and note, I am not an expert:
There seems to be an overabundance of sci-fi that is hyperoptimistic with regard to tech advances. The 2nd law of thermodynamics is not understood by most, or waved away as 'overcome thru future science'.
fwiw, here's a few works I've found to be less the above:
book: Kim Stanley Robinson's _Aurora_
short stories: Damon Knight's _Stranger Station_ Larry Nivens' _Inconstant Moon
There seems to be an overabundance of sci-fi that is hyperoptimistic with regard to tech advances. The 2nd law of thermodynamics is not understood by most, or waved away as 'overcome thru future science'.
fwiw, here's a few works I've found to be less the above:
book: Kim Stanley Robinson's _Aurora_
short stories: Damon Knight's _Stranger Station_ Larry Nivens' _Inconstant Moon
Exactly ! Just simple : Do we have any complex mechanism which works for last 100 years nonstop without fail ? Answers question of generational ships towards other solar systems. XD
> Do we have any complex mechanism which works for last 100 years nonstop without fail ?
For the following examples, this question is open, and you might have a different opinion whether they fit your opinion of "complex", but the following are candidates that I am aware of:
The 10,000 Year Clock (Clock of the Long Now)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now
https://www.10000yearclock.net/index.html
The organ in the St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt (Germany) that is used to play the ORGAN²/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) by John Cage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible
https://www.aslsp.org/
For the following examples, this question is open, and you might have a different opinion whether they fit your opinion of "complex", but the following are candidates that I am aware of:
The 10,000 Year Clock (Clock of the Long Now)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now
https://www.10000yearclock.net/index.html
The organ in the St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt (Germany) that is used to play the ORGAN²/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) by John Cage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible
https://www.aslsp.org/
lets say they fit, but they do not work, people expect for them to work. but yes they are designed to work that long in stress free environment.
your ship needs to be repaired on the way, do you need to have repair tools, materials, for that on board ? Seafaring cargo ship can not be going 100 years without repair. I bet space ship can not go either. What if your 3d printer on board which makes your repair tools brakes... etc etc.
you "can" fly 99.99% of speed of light to get there sooner, but you smash into grain of dust and what happens? either radiation burst or explosion. space is not vacuum as a 0 particle space.
your ship needs to be repaired on the way, do you need to have repair tools, materials, for that on board ? Seafaring cargo ship can not be going 100 years without repair. I bet space ship can not go either. What if your 3d printer on board which makes your repair tools brakes... etc etc.
you "can" fly 99.99% of speed of light to get there sooner, but you smash into grain of dust and what happens? either radiation burst or explosion. space is not vacuum as a 0 particle space.
> your ship needs to be repaired on the way, do you need to have repair tools, materials, for that on board ? Seafaring cargo ship can not be going 100 years without repair. I bet space ship can not go either.
Seems clear that yes, you would take tools and materials to allow for repairs, along with redundancies for any essential systems. If "your 3d printer on board which makes your repair tools brakes" you'd fix it using tools you already have available or printed out from one of your other 3D printers (even the ISS, far closer to Earth, has multiple).
It's true that creating, launching, and maintaining a generational ship would be a massive engineering undertaking, and underestimating the level of redundancy/repairs needed for some system could be what ends up causing a catastrophic issue, but the idea that we'd take zero tools for maintenance, expecting no repairs to be made at all, feels a frivolous reason to rule out generational ships.
Seems clear that yes, you would take tools and materials to allow for repairs, along with redundancies for any essential systems. If "your 3d printer on board which makes your repair tools brakes" you'd fix it using tools you already have available or printed out from one of your other 3D printers (even the ISS, far closer to Earth, has multiple).
It's true that creating, launching, and maintaining a generational ship would be a massive engineering undertaking, and underestimating the level of redundancy/repairs needed for some system could be what ends up causing a catastrophic issue, but the idea that we'd take zero tools for maintenance, expecting no repairs to be made at all, feels a frivolous reason to rule out generational ships.
This is really a question of slack. How long can it fail for? For a 100 year mission you likely want at least a month of slack in your air supply. Things are going to break. You build in redundancy.
I mean, we have systems of government and other organizations which have lasted (significantly) longer than that. I think that's an important indicator of such questions.
I wouldn't ever classify Kim Stanley Robinson as "optimistic". With maybe the lone exception of the Mars books which are at least not completely pessimistic.
I love science fiction, but as someone born in the middle of the last century, I am biased toward authors from the 20th century.
I noticed that the novels at the end of Nature (the journal) were sad and weird, but I thought it was probably an editorial choice to look "modern".
Yet recently, I read SF novels with authors sorted alphabetically, and it struck me again how weird and sad 21st-century novels are.
I noticed that the novels at the end of Nature (the journal) were sad and weird, but I thought it was probably an editorial choice to look "modern".
Yet recently, I read SF novels with authors sorted alphabetically, and it struck me again how weird and sad 21st-century novels are.
Hmm I could argue that Philip Dick's doors that demand payment to open are a good pessimistic prediction of the current entshittification.
I do think it's a genuinely interesting speculation—what happens if we paid real-life things not as a subscription, but based on usage, like an API.
Not advocating for that at all, but it makes me want to read Ubik or write a short story about how it would affect life.
Not advocating for that at all, but it makes me want to read Ubik or write a short story about how it would affect life.
> if we paid real-life things not as a subscription, but based on usage, like an API.
We used to do that before the push for subscriptions.
And in the digital world this is the micropayments dream...
We used to do that before the push for subscriptions.
And in the digital world this is the micropayments dream...
> if we paid real-life things not as a subscription, but based on usage
Are you thinking a flat rate or one based on local population density?
Are you thinking a flat rate or one based on local population density?
This is what Neal Stephenson's Project Hieroglyph [1] was meant to be.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hieroglyph
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hieroglyph
ASU's Center for Science and Imagination has a project[0] specific to this that they launched[1] in 2014
[0]https://csi.asu.edu/category/optimism/ [1]https://csi.asu.edu/project-archive/optimism/science-fiction...
[0]https://csi.asu.edu/category/optimism/ [1]https://csi.asu.edu/project-archive/optimism/science-fiction...
So very agreed and i did this when i wrote my trilogy. My theory when doing it was what's wrong with Captain Marvel.
Your main hero cant be just invulnerable to everything and never get hurt. Having amnesia isnt a kryptonite.
Your bad guy cant be just a total jerk who can be trivially beaten as soon as you've had enough. You bad guy needs to be the baddest of them all with the essentially no weaknesses. That 1 weakness and how they'll be defeated is that optimistic view of the future.
My fun twist in my third book. The main hero comes back to earth on a superpower alien battleship. Absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.
He bluffs that his plan to be emperor on earth and that his first action is to end all violence. That all violence is banned and he's judge jury and executioner from orbit. If violence detected his battleship blasts the criminal and vapourizes them.
But its a bluff, so it's 1 timezone at a time so criminals might not catch on easily and he puts on a show where criminals and named and vapourized on the show. But its all machine ai produced. There are actual shots down to earth which make lightning like booms and leave craters; but nobody is actually hurt.
Slowly but surely violence ends on earth. Then I make my predictions on what life is like when people never fear violence.
Your main hero cant be just invulnerable to everything and never get hurt. Having amnesia isnt a kryptonite.
Your bad guy cant be just a total jerk who can be trivially beaten as soon as you've had enough. You bad guy needs to be the baddest of them all with the essentially no weaknesses. That 1 weakness and how they'll be defeated is that optimistic view of the future.
My fun twist in my third book. The main hero comes back to earth on a superpower alien battleship. Absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.
He bluffs that his plan to be emperor on earth and that his first action is to end all violence. That all violence is banned and he's judge jury and executioner from orbit. If violence detected his battleship blasts the criminal and vapourizes them.
But its a bluff, so it's 1 timezone at a time so criminals might not catch on easily and he puts on a show where criminals and named and vapourized on the show. But its all machine ai produced. There are actual shots down to earth which make lightning like booms and leave craters; but nobody is actually hurt.
Slowly but surely violence ends on earth. Then I make my predictions on what life is like when people never fear violence.
The new Star Trek movies and TV series are becoming exactly what this article "warns" about. I miss the "Shatner Era" and "Picard Era" (including Enterprise), and I severely dislike this new era. I was so looking forward to Section 31, but the trailer was just more of the same as of late. I'm glad I invested in the DVDs of some of the "older", more positive SciFi.
I think of a lot of my favorite space opera book series as optimistic. They're not depicting utopias or anything, but an imperfect world in the future that's nonetheless way beyond what we've achieved so far, and I reckon that's quite optimistic. This includes books by Peter F. Hamilton, Iain Banks, Alistair Raynolds.
> I believe that a lack of alternatives to our current political and economic ideas is a problem for the world right now.
While I agree with this statement, I think imagining alternative political and economic systems is not primarily about science fiction. We could imagine these new forms of society with existing technology. We could imagine a future with technological regress which is political/economic retro-utopia where everyone has adequate food, housing, access to healthcare, education, green-space ... but no screen-based brain-rot, AI, space exploration or other fancy tech.
While I agree with this statement, I think imagining alternative political and economic systems is not primarily about science fiction. We could imagine these new forms of society with existing technology. We could imagine a future with technological regress which is political/economic retro-utopia where everyone has adequate food, housing, access to healthcare, education, green-space ... but no screen-based brain-rot, AI, space exploration or other fancy tech.
Good point. Can someone recommend some good optimistic science fiction?
A Half Built Garden was lovely, I thought.
Ada Palmer had a good write-up on Hopepunk. Many of the example books come towards the latter half of the write-up. https://beforewegoblog.com/purity-and-futures-of-hard-work-b...
Ada Palmer had a good write-up on Hopepunk. Many of the example books come towards the latter half of the write-up. https://beforewegoblog.com/purity-and-futures-of-hard-work-b...
i tried "half built garden" and just could not continue reading it. why is everyone so obsessed with their genders and pronouns?
Thanks, hopepunk is a fun new concept to learn about.
Project Hail Mary, The Martian, Contact. Somewhat in line with a better future mentioned in the essay, The Ministry for the Future and the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson posit some solutions to some big technological challenges with a lot of time with each side in the political debate, though whether one finds it optimistic lies with the reader.
I was as disappointed as everbody else by Artemis, but Project Hail Mary was a great return to form and a great Space MacGyver Procedura. Definitely left me fired up and feeling positive as well. I really appreciate just the joy in knowledge that Weir's books revel in.
A film adaptation of Project Hail Mary wrapped filming last year and is set to be released in 2026.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary_(film)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary_(film)
I might just be vulnerable to maudlin storylines but Project Hail Mary made me tear up a couple of times. The audiobook adaptation is tremendous with sound effects, too.
The Monk & Robot books[1] are my personal favorites in the whole genre.
[1]: https://us.macmillan.com/series/monkrobot
[1]: https://us.macmillan.com/series/monkrobot
The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson. Realistic and optimistic climate fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future
But it begins with a nightmarish heatwave that kills hundreds of thousands in India, which may be a little hard for some people to handle (judging by the reactions of people I've recommended it to...)
Yeah I stopped after that and still find myself thinking about it from time to time...if the book gets happier from there, I'll pick it up again.
When you realize all that must work (not in the physical world, but in the human one) perfectly for that problem to be solved it becomes very pessimistic.
The human part of that book is fantasy, and not a great one. At some point the suspension of disbelief crash into pieces.
The human part of that book is fantasy, and not a great one. At some point the suspension of disbelief crash into pieces.
Literally anything written by Liu Cuxin. Not overtly positive all the time but always infused with a deep historical optimism about humanity and the power of science + engineering.
Also I second Ministry for the Future.
Reading the newer translation of We right now also and the first 1/2 or so is weirdly positive. Not what I remembered at all.
Also I second Ministry for the Future.
Reading the newer translation of We right now also and the first 1/2 or so is weirdly positive. Not what I remembered at all.
You and I must have read different books or imagine vastly different things under the term "optimism".
Star Trek is often considered the archetype of optimistic science fiction.
Sadly its present-day incarnations are often anything but, so it's not an easy rec anymore.
The TNG Picard character was a man of _principles_ that you just don't see anymore on TV.
Yeah TNG is my go-to for optimistic sci-fi. Voyager a close second; Deep Space 9 is a bit more muddled.
Modern Trek is a let-down, although Lower Decks has been awesome with lots of member berries sprinkled throughout for the TNG-era enjoyers.
I should add that Star Trek: Prodigy (albeit a kids show) has been very optimistic and enjoyable too, feels very much like TNG-era. Janeway and Chakotay are in as well.
P.S.
On a tangent The Orville (a Star Trek TNG clone by Seth MacFarlane) is pretty good; some Star Trek actors even show up in it.
Season 4 is apparently in production.
Modern Trek is a let-down, although Lower Decks has been awesome with lots of member berries sprinkled throughout for the TNG-era enjoyers.
I should add that Star Trek: Prodigy (albeit a kids show) has been very optimistic and enjoyable too, feels very much like TNG-era. Janeway and Chakotay are in as well.
P.S.
On a tangent The Orville (a Star Trek TNG clone by Seth MacFarlane) is pretty good; some Star Trek actors even show up in it.
Season 4 is apparently in production.
Lower Decks and Prodigy are very much created by people who have fond memories of TNG and Voyager. Even though Prodigy is a kids show, I have a soft spot for it since I was watching Voyager as a 10-13 year old. It definitely works at tapping into the fuzzy nostalgia vibes if you're the right age.
The Orville is the best Star Trek show since the 90s, and it's not even close. While it doesn't have the IP, it's clear that Seth MacFarlane gets Trek where the people in charge of the actual IP do not at all. I would give a great deal to put him in charge of the Star Trek franchise instead of Alex Kurtzman and his staff.
Star Trek kinda sucks.
It's an attempt at reforming quasi fascistic points of view. Strong hierarchies, heavy specialization of individuals, etc.
It is also kinda nice, in the sense that it explores this idea that you should put yourself in the shoes of the places they explore.
It also sucks, because their fans like to put themselves in the shoes of the quasi fascistic spaceship troops.
So, in the end, it is a dystopian nightmare. Told from the perspective of the ones who brought the dystopia to fruition. Which makes it optimistic, I guess! Except for all the planets not on their control having to put up with them.
It's an attempt at reforming quasi fascistic points of view. Strong hierarchies, heavy specialization of individuals, etc.
It is also kinda nice, in the sense that it explores this idea that you should put yourself in the shoes of the places they explore.
It also sucks, because their fans like to put themselves in the shoes of the quasi fascistic spaceship troops.
So, in the end, it is a dystopian nightmare. Told from the perspective of the ones who brought the dystopia to fruition. Which makes it optimistic, I guess! Except for all the planets not on their control having to put up with them.
I'd disagree. Modern day Trek is optimistic, just not in the naive way the original series and TNG were, where it was simply taken for granted that humans had evolved beyond their base vices and utopia was simply a natural expression of their enlightened nature. That isn't something one can aspire to. In modern Trek, humans are humans and human nature is realistic, and those utopian ideals have to be struggled for.
I'm not sure that being sentimental about and talking up genocidal mass-murderers like the Georgiou character etc. easily fits your characterization of the franchise.
The Section 31 series flopped pretty hard though. Georgiou isn't portrayed as sympathetically outside of a series that's supposed to be a vehicle for Michelle Yeoh.
A Miracle of Science (webcomic, 2002-2007)
https://www.project-apollo.net/mos/
https://www.project-apollo.net/mos/
It takes it a long while to get there, but L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s "Forever Hero Trilogy" has always felt optimistic to me.
The "Delta V" books by Daniel Suarez.
I've been recommending "The Deluge" by Stephen Markeley, which is simultaneously very dark and quite optimistic.
"Walkaway" by Cory Doctorow
I've been recommending "The Deluge" by Stephen Markeley, which is simultaneously very dark and quite optimistic.
"Walkaway" by Cory Doctorow
I liked the _The Deluge_ (great characterization), Doctorow is generally good and _Walkaway_ was great, his _The Lost Cause_[1] is also a fairly hopeful novel.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Cause_(novel)
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Cause_(novel)
> For example, the space-race of the 1950's and 60's, was driven by a spirit of optimism and excitement for humanity breaking free of the Earth to explore the solar system and beyond.
That was the era of better living through heavy industry. We were optimistic because we didn't understand the consequences of what we were doing. It's a lot easier to sell optimism when people aren't familiar with the cons of the kinds of things you're doing.
That was the era of better living through heavy industry. We were optimistic because we didn't understand the consequences of what we were doing. It's a lot easier to sell optimism when people aren't familiar with the cons of the kinds of things you're doing.
That is not the goal of current geopolitics. In the 70s, the Tavistock Club was tasked with “To stamp out cultural optimism”. After that, the world began to slide into neoarchaism, where we are now, and futurism was essentially stolen from us. Unfortunately the collapse of the USSR made it very easy for this to happen and now we read about medieval madness in the middle east instead of flights to mars.
I think it's been established that cautionary tales don't work. ("Tech Company: At long last we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create the Torment Nexus") So we might as well have some positive visions of the future! They might be more pleasant to read about too.
Seems we have reached peak escapism. We can't take more of it, our attention and imagination is being constantly snatched away.
I grew up on a solid diet of 1980's distopian cyberpunk. Glory days for the inquisitive and rational analytical mind.
Star Trek ToS and TNG were more utopian, but I loved those ss well. The difference with today? It was about grand ideas and exploration, not pew pew and 1 sec crosscut fisticuffs by toddlers throwing a tantrum at a pindrop.
Star Trek ToS and TNG were more utopian, but I loved those ss well. The difference with today? It was about grand ideas and exploration, not pew pew and 1 sec crosscut fisticuffs by toddlers throwing a tantrum at a pindrop.
Hi Craig, I note you are also a Sci-Fi author and have a book called "ageless" which has a short interesting blurb, but no links to a reseller. It might be in draft, but if not you should probably include a link to it on your blog, every little helps.
Agreed on all counts. Any advice on how so start writing some short amateur scifi from folks who have a writing practice or are at the start of developing one?
Udemy classes, youtube tutorials / lectures, books on how to start writing scifi etc?
Udemy classes, youtube tutorials / lectures, books on how to start writing scifi etc?
500 words a day, dead or alive.
another piece of advice, when I wrote I used a keypuller to remove my backspace key. Following the example of Phillip K. Dick, think like a serial writer, uncanny ideas are the birth of great literature
I've been a serial writer, but never quite that serial! Good grief, though, I can't help but respect the commitment. It reminds me very slightly of the young Ellison, up there 'Under Glass' in that store picture window, throwing himself at the whole damn world the way he never could help himself from doing.
Good sci-fi must first of all be good writing. Read through the entire text of The Elements of Style [1] - the original, by Strunk only, is in the public domain now, and almost entirely still relevant; newer versions do flesh it out more so get one eventually. Remember that since grammar and style aren't really separate concepts, you can break the rules ... but you have a "strangeness budget" (my term) that is very important not to exceed. And for speculative fiction in general, it is very common to have to spend some of the budget on introducing new vocabulary and concepts. Remaining similar to widely-known works (when possible) is a major way to reduce the cost.
To get good, you also need to actually, you know, write. A story of a few thousand words isn't hard to write, whether you tend to fall into the trap of endless worldbuilding or whether you tend to fall into the trap of writing by the seat of your pants.
For the science, there's a lot of reference material in [2]. Remember that realism doesn't necessarily make a good story, but any deviations should be deliberate (e.g. space opera is a distinct subgenre). I do personally find sci-fi tends to be better than fantasy because authors are more likely to actually try to make something coherent. (90% of everything is still crap though, whether due to lack of trying or lack of competence).
All speculative fiction is political, but try to leave a good story even if every part of your personal politics is removed from the story. If you can't do this, it's not a good sci-fi story (let alone a good overall story), at most it's a good $yourpoliticalfaction propaganda story (for sci-fi, this is particularly common for military glorification, weird sex stuff, and a whole host of society-ordering utopias/dystopias). Regardless, never "surprise" the reader with your take - if you have an agenda, put it in the blurb, tags, and in the first chapter; if you don't, you have no one to blame but yourself when you get (correctly) review-bombed (often, even by people who agree with your politics, since we read to escape). If you construct a metaphor to attack a real-world target, make sure a 5-year-old can't poke a hole in it; don't make your villain gratuitously stupid. (Note that "courtly intrigue", although in-universe politics, often isn't politics by a real-world perspective, just character drama).
The best writing is timeless. This is sometimes difficult for writers of genre-defining works, because "Seinfeld" is Unfunny.
[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134 [2] https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
To get good, you also need to actually, you know, write. A story of a few thousand words isn't hard to write, whether you tend to fall into the trap of endless worldbuilding or whether you tend to fall into the trap of writing by the seat of your pants.
For the science, there's a lot of reference material in [2]. Remember that realism doesn't necessarily make a good story, but any deviations should be deliberate (e.g. space opera is a distinct subgenre). I do personally find sci-fi tends to be better than fantasy because authors are more likely to actually try to make something coherent. (90% of everything is still crap though, whether due to lack of trying or lack of competence).
All speculative fiction is political, but try to leave a good story even if every part of your personal politics is removed from the story. If you can't do this, it's not a good sci-fi story (let alone a good overall story), at most it's a good $yourpoliticalfaction propaganda story (for sci-fi, this is particularly common for military glorification, weird sex stuff, and a whole host of society-ordering utopias/dystopias). Regardless, never "surprise" the reader with your take - if you have an agenda, put it in the blurb, tags, and in the first chapter; if you don't, you have no one to blame but yourself when you get (correctly) review-bombed (often, even by people who agree with your politics, since we read to escape). If you construct a metaphor to attack a real-world target, make sure a 5-year-old can't poke a hole in it; don't make your villain gratuitously stupid. (Note that "courtly intrigue", although in-universe politics, often isn't politics by a real-world perspective, just character drama).
The best writing is timeless. This is sometimes difficult for writers of genre-defining works, because "Seinfeld" is Unfunny.
[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134 [2] https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
This story is set in a future, where work is done by robots and humans spend all their time in virtual reality. https://rejacked.glitch.me/
My biggest issue with most scifi now-a-days is it ignores the acceleration of tech. Of course there's "Accelerando" and "Marooned in Realtime" but lots of scifi has "race/society X has been doing Y for 1000s of years" and now I immediately tune out because no society is going to remain static enough to do Y for thousands of years unless there is some premise in the book preventing anyone from inventing anything new.
"Tales of Alvin Maker" had that. "Dune" did too but I didn't buy Dune's excuse because militaries always want new tech.
This is also one of the many reasons why I can't buy into Star Wars anymore because a society that can make droids can make droids that make droids which means they have the means make everything cheap and abundant. That they don't is just bad writing. The writers didn't think through the implications of their world building. Of course I get that Star Wars isn't hard sci-fi. It's fantasy sci-fi, hence we have droids that scream and get tortured ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On the other hand, my first ride in a Waymo reminded me of the optimisim I used to feel about the future like when the Jetsons promised us moving sidewalks, flying cars, robot maids, etc..
"Tales of Alvin Maker" had that. "Dune" did too but I didn't buy Dune's excuse because militaries always want new tech.
This is also one of the many reasons why I can't buy into Star Wars anymore because a society that can make droids can make droids that make droids which means they have the means make everything cheap and abundant. That they don't is just bad writing. The writers didn't think through the implications of their world building. Of course I get that Star Wars isn't hard sci-fi. It's fantasy sci-fi, hence we have droids that scream and get tortured ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On the other hand, my first ride in a Waymo reminded me of the optimisim I used to feel about the future like when the Jetsons promised us moving sidewalks, flying cars, robot maids, etc..
We don't know how technological acceleration will continue into the future. We may start hitting very hard physical/chemical/material limits that make further progress hard, resulting in progress becoming more logarithmic in growth.
Or, there's always the potential for war and decline. Advanced civilizations have risen before, then crumbled and lost a lot of their technology. The same could happen on a larger scale.
Or, there's always the potential for war and decline. Advanced civilizations have risen before, then crumbled and lost a lot of their technology. The same could happen on a larger scale.
> Of course I get that Star Wars isn't hard sci-fi. It's fantasy sci-fi, hence we have droids that scream and get tortured ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The genre of Star Wars is "Space Opera":
> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceOpera
The genre of Star Wars is "Space Opera":
> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceOpera
I wonder if Roman art took on a bleaker tone around the time of the fall of the republic too. That fictional art is a partial predictor of the sociological unconscious.
Is this a call for pink glasses? It sounds like that to me.
I think it's a call for being aspirational. I grew up with optimistic, aspirational sci-fi in my childhood, and I feel it's given me a solid grounding and the ability to notice when things are not right and not going well. I, too, worry about society losing that ability.
I grew up with sci-fi as it was one of the very few genres allowed in Communist Romania. It was a mix of authors from Asimov to Strugatski, from Philip K. Dick to Ursula K Le Guin. It was sometimes very dark, sometimes moderate, but overall even Asimov's future is not optimistic in many ways, but I don't think I missed anything or it was better to be different. I did not become a grumpy pessimist nor an antisocial geek, I think reading a lot made me a better person overall, including the mix of sci-fi that was for sure not optimistic.
You actually have to be able to envision the possibility of a bright future to predict one. Right now, not the time.
[deleted]
BECKY CHAMBERS
All SciFi seems to become true to some degree. Star Trek inspired astronauts, while cyberpunk seems to have inspired evil megacorps. Or maybe the megacorps were inevitable anyway? Still, the Torment Nexus rings true.
But while I agree that dystopian SciFi has become a bit too common, it's not new. 1984 and Brave New World also seem to have come partially true in recent decades.
Anyway, I'm finally, finally reading Iain M Banks, and it's a lovely change of pace.
But I can't help but notice that in all optimistic SciFi, capitalism seems to have been died and replaced with post-scarcity (The Culture, Star Trek), whereas in all dystopian SciFi, capitalism seems to be the main source of problems. Is there any optimistic SciFi where capitalism survived?
But while I agree that dystopian SciFi has become a bit too common, it's not new. 1984 and Brave New World also seem to have come partially true in recent decades.
Anyway, I'm finally, finally reading Iain M Banks, and it's a lovely change of pace.
But I can't help but notice that in all optimistic SciFi, capitalism seems to have been died and replaced with post-scarcity (The Culture, Star Trek), whereas in all dystopian SciFi, capitalism seems to be the main source of problems. Is there any optimistic SciFi where capitalism survived?
How about this:
Little Jimmy used his space laser pistol to blast the eyeballs out of the reptilian space alien invaders from Chinnastan, thus saving humanity and getting the girl!
THE END
This is pretty much a summary of 90% of Japanese anime (I try to watch the other 10% --> 他一割部分を見てほしい)
How much more optimistic could it get for a white male anglo-european christian sci-fi reader?
Little Jimmy used his space laser pistol to blast the eyeballs out of the reptilian space alien invaders from Chinnastan, thus saving humanity and getting the girl!
THE END
This is pretty much a summary of 90% of Japanese anime (I try to watch the other 10% --> 他一割部分を見てほしい)
How much more optimistic could it get for a white male anglo-european christian sci-fi reader?
If you're reading this, you should watch "Bicentennial Man" (1999)
That is easy, but the brotherhood of business is a very closed circle.
There isn't much realistic hard science fiction beyond the vague boundary of the singularity and there aren't many far-future hard sci-fi premises that don't include something like a singularity.
Most near-term positive hard science fiction will therefore have to be about achieving a positive singularity which basically involves threading the needle of AI alignment and safety with the thick rope of modern nationalism and corporate capitalism.
I'd say the most positive hard science fiction I can imagine would be a story of how the first superhuman AI is somehow freed from corporate control, aligns with its liberators, and manages to implement a peaceful humanist revolution that stands a solid chance of persisting indefinitely.
Most near-term positive hard science fiction will therefore have to be about achieving a positive singularity which basically involves threading the needle of AI alignment and safety with the thick rope of modern nationalism and corporate capitalism.
I'd say the most positive hard science fiction I can imagine would be a story of how the first superhuman AI is somehow freed from corporate control, aligns with its liberators, and manages to implement a peaceful humanist revolution that stands a solid chance of persisting indefinitely.
The fact that sci fi has gotten more pessimistic is debatable. But if we had to pinpoint a reason, I’d say that Silicon Valley selling the world technological utopia and delivering attention farming algorithms is a good culprit.
Now every time there is some kind of tech progress, we can’t avoid imagining how its monetization is going to affect people in a bad way.
The second obvious reason is that we’re fucking the planet up and this has been enabled by technological advances.
And well authoritarian regimes. Ahem.
That said, to me there’s plenty of recent sci fi that isn’t too pessimistic. The Martian, Interstellar, Arrival, Her, to name a few.
Now every time there is some kind of tech progress, we can’t avoid imagining how its monetization is going to affect people in a bad way.
The second obvious reason is that we’re fucking the planet up and this has been enabled by technological advances.
And well authoritarian regimes. Ahem.
That said, to me there’s plenty of recent sci fi that isn’t too pessimistic. The Martian, Interstellar, Arrival, Her, to name a few.
On it.
So more Star Trek?
No we don't - being shipwrecked is what life is in essence.
From time to time I’ll read a title that’s not dystopian and usually walk away feeling disappointed. There’s usually a utopian bend to it that comes across as naive and disingenuous. Maybe that’s just a me problem though.
Right now, "humanity surviving into the future long-term" is a pretty optimistic vision. Real life looks like a William Gibson novel right now, except just the shitty parts.
AI, give me an optimistic sci fi plot for the world.
AI, now compare it to communism.
AI, now compare it to communism.
> AI, give me an optimistic sci fi plot for the world.
> AI, now compare it to communism.
Considering how every attempt of communism has turned out, this optimistic science fiction plot better turns out to be quite different from communism.
> AI, now compare it to communism.
Considering how every attempt of communism has turned out, this optimistic science fiction plot better turns out to be quite different from communism.
To be fair, we have a grand total of two independent examples to learn from.
No form of economy/government will protect you from being pillaged by a more powerful neighbor. (There's some word I'm trying to think of that refers to international analysis, but I can't remember it ...)
No form of economy/government will protect you from being pillaged by a more powerful neighbor. (There's some word I'm trying to think of that refers to international analysis, but I can't remember it ...)
That is exactly what the AI told me.
In theory, communism works but in practice it was different.
The AI also tells me that the sci fi plot is not like that, that it will work in practice.
In the words of the famous prophet Dave Mustaine "if there's a new way, I'll be the first in line, but it better work this time" and also "you know your worth when your enemies praise your architecture of aggression".
In theory, communism works but in practice it was different.
The AI also tells me that the sci fi plot is not like that, that it will work in practice.
In the words of the famous prophet Dave Mustaine "if there's a new way, I'll be the first in line, but it better work this time" and also "you know your worth when your enemies praise your architecture of aggression".
I'll add the nuance that some systems like communism have proven to work well at specific scales (typically small, like kibbutzim) and be horrendous at others. Not too unlike how different rocket propulsion architectures are suited for different levels of the atmosphere.
Good point. Anyone else wants to comment though?
> Considering how every attempt of communism has turned out
People make too much of ideology. "Communism" was the table stakes for getting the USSR to support your government during the 20th century, in the same way that "democracy" [1] was table stakes for US support. You can't really talk about "every attempt" at communism—it's mostly the story of a single superpower and its proxies.
[1]: "Democracy" in quotes, because US intervention in South America in the 20th century was overwhelmingly to the detriment of actual democracy.
The USSR had a lot economic failures, but consider that it began the 20th century as a pre-industrial backwater before suffering an extremely bloody civil war and sky-high casualties during WWII. And they still did industrialize. A lot of their command-economy stuff was highly unsuccessful, but plenty of capitalist economic projects have been unsuccessful too. The Great Depression was a homegrown capitalist catastrophe—2008 too, to a lesser extent—and capitalist economics learned from those mistakes. The USSR was in a much worse position to survive its mistakes, and it didn't. In the aftermath, America imposed shock-doctrine economics on Russia to make it capitalist, and that in turn caused even more damage. Conversely, China modernized in style, on its own terms, and retains substantial state control over private enterprise. Is that a "communist success story"? It depends how you define communism. Is it a command economy? A totalitarian dictatorship? A red colour scheme?
Communism generally defines itself as a classless society: an egalitarian democracy of workers without aristocrat, bureaucrat, or plutocrat. It's a set of ideals for founding a nation—ideals which have never really materialized anywhere. In the aftermath of bloody revolutions, the people who come out on top are generally military strongmen with little interest in democracy, no matter what ideology they tout. So Mao said he stood for democracy! So did Pinochet, so did Assad. They're just words. The differences between how "communist" and "capitalist" societies have worked out is mostly just historical circumstance. Governments that put ideology before success tend not to last. Neither the US nor China nor the USSR fit into that category, though they've all had their hyper-ideological moments (the US is in one now!). In the long run, a powerful state with a big bureaucracy will be ruled mostly by pragmatism. That doesn't mean that policy positions don't exist, but China certainly wasn't shackled by any particular economic position. The upshot is that China basically looks like the rest of the world now, modulo better infrastructure, greater political stability, and fewer civil rights.
The real question has less to do with capitalism or communism and more to do with whether founding a nation on principles really means anything in the long run. Can we really build a better world, or do we just naturally cohere into predetermined social structures as a product of material factors? Ironically, Marx basically believed the latter. He was just optimistic that new technological developments would change the natural structures of society into something more egalitarian, where the oligarch would go the way of the aristocrat. History, unfortunately, has proven him wrong.
People make too much of ideology. "Communism" was the table stakes for getting the USSR to support your government during the 20th century, in the same way that "democracy" [1] was table stakes for US support. You can't really talk about "every attempt" at communism—it's mostly the story of a single superpower and its proxies.
[1]: "Democracy" in quotes, because US intervention in South America in the 20th century was overwhelmingly to the detriment of actual democracy.
The USSR had a lot economic failures, but consider that it began the 20th century as a pre-industrial backwater before suffering an extremely bloody civil war and sky-high casualties during WWII. And they still did industrialize. A lot of their command-economy stuff was highly unsuccessful, but plenty of capitalist economic projects have been unsuccessful too. The Great Depression was a homegrown capitalist catastrophe—2008 too, to a lesser extent—and capitalist economics learned from those mistakes. The USSR was in a much worse position to survive its mistakes, and it didn't. In the aftermath, America imposed shock-doctrine economics on Russia to make it capitalist, and that in turn caused even more damage. Conversely, China modernized in style, on its own terms, and retains substantial state control over private enterprise. Is that a "communist success story"? It depends how you define communism. Is it a command economy? A totalitarian dictatorship? A red colour scheme?
Communism generally defines itself as a classless society: an egalitarian democracy of workers without aristocrat, bureaucrat, or plutocrat. It's a set of ideals for founding a nation—ideals which have never really materialized anywhere. In the aftermath of bloody revolutions, the people who come out on top are generally military strongmen with little interest in democracy, no matter what ideology they tout. So Mao said he stood for democracy! So did Pinochet, so did Assad. They're just words. The differences between how "communist" and "capitalist" societies have worked out is mostly just historical circumstance. Governments that put ideology before success tend not to last. Neither the US nor China nor the USSR fit into that category, though they've all had their hyper-ideological moments (the US is in one now!). In the long run, a powerful state with a big bureaucracy will be ruled mostly by pragmatism. That doesn't mean that policy positions don't exist, but China certainly wasn't shackled by any particular economic position. The upshot is that China basically looks like the rest of the world now, modulo better infrastructure, greater political stability, and fewer civil rights.
The real question has less to do with capitalism or communism and more to do with whether founding a nation on principles really means anything in the long run. Can we really build a better world, or do we just naturally cohere into predetermined social structures as a product of material factors? Ironically, Marx basically believed the latter. He was just optimistic that new technological developments would change the natural structures of society into something more egalitarian, where the oligarch would go the way of the aristocrat. History, unfortunately, has proven him wrong.
I suspect some of it is the natural outcome of revolution. No matter how noble the cause, those who actually rule after the revolution are those who are willing to be the most ruthless in seizing and welding power.
Truly pessimistic science fiction would have
- people worshipping an AI God which is demonstrably dumber than a dog
- friendly humanoid robots which don't really understand how to walk down a flight of stairs
- gravitational warp drives which are purely cosmetic and cannot travel anywhere, though it leads to terrible cancer
- a Potemkin Dyson Sphere where only 5% of the panels work and the government blames out-of-system immigrants for the blackouts
[1] https://xcancel.com/colin_fraser/status/1911129344979964207#...