The Rise of Dismal Science Fiction(slate.com)
slate.com
The Rise of Dismal Science Fiction
https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/how-science-fiction-helps-us-understand-our-economic-system.html
55 comments
In the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual which I obsessed about as a child, the authors (Rick Sternbach and Micheal Okuda, graphic designers on the show) go to great pains to emphasise grow things about the replicators: first, that they have limitations in terms of resolution, and that replicated objects are only ”approximately correct” (something that in-universe is referred to as ”molecular resolution”, so that they cannot run off and start replicating characters)m and secondly, that replication has a huge energetic cost (to foreclose on the risk that one might infer the capability to replicate whole starships at the press of a button). As such, I have never viewed the replicators as being ”post-scarcity” myself, but to have simply shifted the effective constraint to an energetic limitation.
> replicated objects are only ”approximately correct”
Regarding food and drinks, there are numerous quips across TNG that replicated edible things aren't quite up to spec to the homemade, natural ones, and often altered to provide optimal nutrients† or prevent deleterious effects (notably alcohol).
† I suppose that's how Troy's getting away with her massive chocolate dessert consumption
Regarding food and drinks, there are numerous quips across TNG that replicated edible things aren't quite up to spec to the homemade, natural ones, and often altered to provide optimal nutrients† or prevent deleterious effects (notably alcohol).
† I suppose that's how Troy's getting away with her massive chocolate dessert consumption
Yea, Scotty doesn't like Synthol in that TNG episode where he gets revived.
On some level they're probably just efficient sewage processing.
Astronauts on the ISS mostly drink recycled water, including bodily fluids:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS
Star Trek: DS9 Season 3 Episode 11 and 12, "Past Tense" touched on this with it's portrayal of the fictional Bell Riots in 2024 that were instrumental in getting the United States to face the social problems it had been ignoring.
Trek's premise is that a just few hundred years in human evolution will be enough to make the human brain socially mature so that after solving the scarcity problem there won't be any crime, save for just a few villains here and there. Sadly it's pure scifi because should such a thing happen it would require no less than ten thousand years minimum, probably a lot more just to get to a significative point.
Having more doesn't make a human less likely to commit a crime: a homeless who didn't eat for days could kill a passer by to steal his sandwich, a lower class citizen could do the same to steal an iPhone, a smarter one could organize bank robberies/kidnaps/drug traffic then launder the money by building a legit business etc. If being wealthy made people less likely to commit crimes we would solve all humankind problems just by putting billionaires in power seats. Having more just moves the target; that's a byproduct of the human desire to get more, which is perfectly fine if one keeps the stance of not harming others to get there.
The problem of telling the story of that transition is that it's like trying to go into detail about the physics in Cochrane's ship in First Contact—the writer would be trying to explain a completely made-up thing (warp drive or the TNG socio-economic system) that itself is nothing more than a handwave to allow stories to be told.
Not really. It would be trying to describe the human element of the technology. We'd not be trying to explain the post-scarcity utopia, but -how humans first reacted to it-.
Look at how humans act now. We have more than enough resources for everyone on earth to have sufficient food. And yet some starve. Why? Because of distribution problems, of corruption, etc. We expect people to work if they want to eat. Why? Because we culturally view it a moral failing if someone doesn't work without good reason (and even then we view those who have reason with suspicion). Look at the discussion around automation + UBI. Even if we assume automation can handle all the work that has to be done, people take the stance that it won't/shouldn't work, that it will only destabilize the economy, rather than improving everyone's lives. A replicator is just another form of automation in that regard, and there would be plenty of people who could object to it.
Just because we have the technology doesn't mean it's initially available to everyone. And even when there's enough availability of the tech, some humans will try and regulate it, to protect the existing interests, and other selfish reasons, with various rationales. That would be -interesting-. Moreover, it would, like all good scifi, reflect our current society, by showing the same attitudes and concerns currently at play, but in a different, futuristic context (one that ideally challenges people's perceptions, but without the baggage that causes them to instinctively get defensive).
I think it could make damned good television. Though, I think, it would be a far cry from what we expect from 'Star Trek'.
Look at how humans act now. We have more than enough resources for everyone on earth to have sufficient food. And yet some starve. Why? Because of distribution problems, of corruption, etc. We expect people to work if they want to eat. Why? Because we culturally view it a moral failing if someone doesn't work without good reason (and even then we view those who have reason with suspicion). Look at the discussion around automation + UBI. Even if we assume automation can handle all the work that has to be done, people take the stance that it won't/shouldn't work, that it will only destabilize the economy, rather than improving everyone's lives. A replicator is just another form of automation in that regard, and there would be plenty of people who could object to it.
Just because we have the technology doesn't mean it's initially available to everyone. And even when there's enough availability of the tech, some humans will try and regulate it, to protect the existing interests, and other selfish reasons, with various rationales. That would be -interesting-. Moreover, it would, like all good scifi, reflect our current society, by showing the same attitudes and concerns currently at play, but in a different, futuristic context (one that ideally challenges people's perceptions, but without the baggage that causes them to instinctively get defensive).
I think it could make damned good television. Though, I think, it would be a far cry from what we expect from 'Star Trek'.
Incentives shape behavior, and we grow weak and unsatisfied without working against resistance. Without exertion, there is no strength. Consider the rapid deterioration of the human body when deprived of gravity.
In the Federation of Planets, what happens to adults who don't feel like making their own challenges or doing much of anything aside from having as many children as possible? Are they allowed to reproduce? This creates rather massive selection pressure. Somebody somewhere is going to have a gene encoding wanting to make maximum possible babies, and it's going to swamp your population in a few rapidly paced generations. The inevitability of this circumstance is total.
Television exploring the overcoming of this, the human condition, could be a profound thing. Perhaps STNG neglects to show us the teeming planets of "welfare dropouts", where reproduction is limited by space, and Federation ships stop by to recruit the few ambitious worthies who yearn for a challenge other than sleeping in the same room as 300 family members?
As a kid, I wondered about this, and my parents explained that the lazy Star Fleet kids go into a transporter beam and never come out, and their parents so happy to be done with backtalk that they aren't even sorry about it. This would be a feasible selection pressure, except for the case of double mutants possessing both fecundity and nurturing instincts, a possibility of which my parents were clearly unaware. (Just kidding. This would be hilarious, though.)
Alternatively, perhaps Starfleet regularly purges the population of lazy bastards? Like, when the population of San Francisco gets too high, if you are more than two generations removed from a successful Star Fleet veteran, you get vaporized? This would explain how Star Fleet Academy is located there without having to pay staff more than Google or even anything at all.
I would be totally binge watch a Trek exploring friction between Google and Star Fleet in the San Fran real estate market. Couldn't possibly be worse than Voyager........
In the Federation of Planets, what happens to adults who don't feel like making their own challenges or doing much of anything aside from having as many children as possible? Are they allowed to reproduce? This creates rather massive selection pressure. Somebody somewhere is going to have a gene encoding wanting to make maximum possible babies, and it's going to swamp your population in a few rapidly paced generations. The inevitability of this circumstance is total.
Television exploring the overcoming of this, the human condition, could be a profound thing. Perhaps STNG neglects to show us the teeming planets of "welfare dropouts", where reproduction is limited by space, and Federation ships stop by to recruit the few ambitious worthies who yearn for a challenge other than sleeping in the same room as 300 family members?
As a kid, I wondered about this, and my parents explained that the lazy Star Fleet kids go into a transporter beam and never come out, and their parents so happy to be done with backtalk that they aren't even sorry about it. This would be a feasible selection pressure, except for the case of double mutants possessing both fecundity and nurturing instincts, a possibility of which my parents were clearly unaware. (Just kidding. This would be hilarious, though.)
Alternatively, perhaps Starfleet regularly purges the population of lazy bastards? Like, when the population of San Francisco gets too high, if you are more than two generations removed from a successful Star Fleet veteran, you get vaporized? This would explain how Star Fleet Academy is located there without having to pay staff more than Google or even anything at all.
I would be totally binge watch a Trek exploring friction between Google and Star Fleet in the San Fran real estate market. Couldn't possibly be worse than Voyager........
> what happens to adults who don't feel like making their own challenges or doing much of anything aside from having as many children as possible?
This is contradicted by the real world experience that when you give people education and contraceptives they really don't do this. There are not that many people who really enjoy the process that much - it's called "labour" for a reason.
Star Trek is likely to be the sort of utopia where boys and girls get reversibly vaccinated against pregnancy in childhood, and having unconsidered or large numbers of children is socially frowned upon.
Now, in Iain M Banks' Culture, it's spelled out. There is no space pressure and there are trillions of humans, but it's also sufficiently post-human that characters can get pregnant, abort a pregnancy, change gender, or get high simply by sitting down and willing it to happen, telling the nanobots in their bloodstream to do their thing.
This is contradicted by the real world experience that when you give people education and contraceptives they really don't do this. There are not that many people who really enjoy the process that much - it's called "labour" for a reason.
Star Trek is likely to be the sort of utopia where boys and girls get reversibly vaccinated against pregnancy in childhood, and having unconsidered or large numbers of children is socially frowned upon.
Now, in Iain M Banks' Culture, it's spelled out. There is no space pressure and there are trillions of humans, but it's also sufficiently post-human that characters can get pregnant, abort a pregnancy, change gender, or get high simply by sitting down and willing it to happen, telling the nanobots in their bloodstream to do their thing.
You're exactly right. The unexplained question in Star Trek isn't why they don't have uncontrollable population growth, it's how do they get enough people to have babies to maintain a stable population on Earth and still have some people leftover to start colonies.
Sure, but in the Culture, it's AI Minds who are fundamentally in control. Very benevolently, of course. Nothing so sinister as Stross' Eschaton, or even Asher's Polity.
[deleted]
> it would be a far cry from what we expect from 'Star Trek'.
CBS is already playing successfully in the dark side of Star Trek. This would be a very attractive pitch if the success of Discovery extends further.
And I'll go as far as to say this is a story that must be told. The stories we tell form the language with which we see our present and future. If all we know are dystopias, well only have ideas to express dystopias and this will be our future.
If, however, we incorporate utopian narratives, we'll be able to express utopias too. We need that.
CBS is already playing successfully in the dark side of Star Trek. This would be a very attractive pitch if the success of Discovery extends further.
And I'll go as far as to say this is a story that must be told. The stories we tell form the language with which we see our present and future. If all we know are dystopias, well only have ideas to express dystopias and this will be our future.
If, however, we incorporate utopian narratives, we'll be able to express utopias too. We need that.
Sadly this show won't happen, imo.
If it would try to be a realistic show it would scare to many people in the first place. A lot of very inconvenient questions about our near future would have to be asked in such a show. (Robots & AI are our "replicators"…)
On the other hand if it wouldn't go into detail there wouldn't be much of an interesting story left to be told.
So, scary intellectual stuff doesn't sell well. Also I don't think one could make a "simple enough" show for the masses dealing with such a complicated theme like a global social transformation. Especially as the masses are in great fear of such a transformation. (Rightly, because we're not on Star Trek and we don't know the outcome yet. Somebody could get nervous in such a transformation process and out of worry of losing to much push some red button, or similar).
If it would try to be a realistic show it would scare to many people in the first place. A lot of very inconvenient questions about our near future would have to be asked in such a show. (Robots & AI are our "replicators"…)
On the other hand if it wouldn't go into detail there wouldn't be much of an interesting story left to be told.
So, scary intellectual stuff doesn't sell well. Also I don't think one could make a "simple enough" show for the masses dealing with such a complicated theme like a global social transformation. Especially as the masses are in great fear of such a transformation. (Rightly, because we're not on Star Trek and we don't know the outcome yet. Somebody could get nervous in such a transformation process and out of worry of losing to much push some red button, or similar).
>> The problem of telling the story of that transition is that it's like trying to go into detail about the physics in Cochrane's ship in First Contact—the writer would be trying to explain a completely made-up thing (warp drive or the TNG socio-economic system) that itself is nothing more than a handwave to allow stories to be told.
I'm binge-watching Voyager and DSN and the truth is that we are treated to quite a bit of made-up science, like subspace physics and the like. Everytime an away team has to be trapped at the far end of a mission to advance the story, someone jumps up to explain why they can't be beamed up in "technical" terms (then someone is ordered to "remodulate"). Everytime a technologically superior enemy corners the Voyager, one hit brings the shields down to 0 because they've been "rotating their weapons frequency" (then someone reports they're "compensating"). Almost every episode of Voyager at least has some made-up-on-the-spot techno-babble like that. It's been a while since I watched TNG but I think it wasn't different there, either.
It's not like the series skirts away from made-up science is what I'm saying, at least when it comes to "physics". They could just as well make up some "sociology" or "history" if they wanted.
I'm binge-watching Voyager and DSN and the truth is that we are treated to quite a bit of made-up science, like subspace physics and the like. Everytime an away team has to be trapped at the far end of a mission to advance the story, someone jumps up to explain why they can't be beamed up in "technical" terms (then someone is ordered to "remodulate"). Everytime a technologically superior enemy corners the Voyager, one hit brings the shields down to 0 because they've been "rotating their weapons frequency" (then someone reports they're "compensating"). Almost every episode of Voyager at least has some made-up-on-the-spot techno-babble like that. It's been a while since I watched TNG but I think it wasn't different there, either.
It's not like the series skirts away from made-up science is what I'm saying, at least when it comes to "physics". They could just as well make up some "sociology" or "history" if they wanted.
The key thing about all of those is that the technology (and techobabble) is just the setting. The real story is interaction. It always is in good scifi. We may find the technical underpinnings interesting, they may be worth an article or two, they may even help influence the direction science takes (due to the choice of problems that researchers choose to tackle, and the vision they have for the possible solutions), but what makes it compelling as a consumer is the human element. Sci-fi and fantasy are grouped together as genres a lot for a reason, being essentially just constructed settings to explore the human condition.
It's true that Star Trek is just a story. OTOH, a machine that cheaply and quickly assembles feedstock into pre-programmed patterns is not physically impossible like warp drive -- it's just something we can't yet make. 3d printers are a crude preview. 19th-century people could have tried to forecast the consequences of Babbage's idea of a computer. It wouldn't have been a ridiculous thing to try: they had electricity and classical economics.
OTOH I wouldn't expect a look at a world with 'replicators' to look much like Star Trek, in the same way Robin Hanson's The Age of Em reads differently from Altered Carbon.
OTOH I wouldn't expect a look at a world with 'replicators' to look much like Star Trek, in the same way Robin Hanson's The Age of Em reads differently from Altered Carbon.
And it's so easy it doesn't even need telling. They simply replicated earth like environments until one succeeded. If they you divide by infinity anything may happen.
They never explain what happens with things that are still scarce. There are several episodes where mention is made of valuable artworks. Peoples time is still scarce, for example holodeck programs take time to create. Starships are clearly not free, and therefore neither is interstellar transport.
Like much of the Star Trek universe, it seems that the writers threw in a neat idea and never gave it much thought.
Like much of the Star Trek universe, it seems that the writers threw in a neat idea and never gave it much thought.
We do know that Federation citizens use non-Federation currencies. Barter seems to be reasonably common in the Star Trek canon.
My own theory is that the goods that are still scarce are utterly trivial, like Beanie Babies or Pogs circa 2018. Everything that you might reasonably want or need is completely free within the Federation; a handful of eccentrics might covet a rare painting or an antique, but the vast majority of people would see their preoccupation as absurd. A lay person might admire a rare painting, but they would see no reason to steal it.
I also think that Federation culture plays a significant role. It's clear that greed of any kind is seen as primitive and antisocial by the overwhelming majority of Federation citizens. We could draw parallels with the Amish or Mennonites - you can't have status goods in a society where displays of wealth actively lower your social status. The Federation is not just a post-scarcity economy, but a post-scarcity culture.
We could think of the time investment in things like holosuite programs as being loosely equivalent to the philanthropic activities of the very wealthy circa 2018, conferring no material benefit but a substantial degree of social capital. Designing a hit holosuite program might not earn you any money, but it would get you an invite to the Federation equivalent of TED. Joseph Sisko charges nothing for meals at his creole restaurant, but earns the respect of his neighbours.
This is a fascinating article speculating on the mechanics of the Federation economy:
https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29ba...
My own theory is that the goods that are still scarce are utterly trivial, like Beanie Babies or Pogs circa 2018. Everything that you might reasonably want or need is completely free within the Federation; a handful of eccentrics might covet a rare painting or an antique, but the vast majority of people would see their preoccupation as absurd. A lay person might admire a rare painting, but they would see no reason to steal it.
I also think that Federation culture plays a significant role. It's clear that greed of any kind is seen as primitive and antisocial by the overwhelming majority of Federation citizens. We could draw parallels with the Amish or Mennonites - you can't have status goods in a society where displays of wealth actively lower your social status. The Federation is not just a post-scarcity economy, but a post-scarcity culture.
We could think of the time investment in things like holosuite programs as being loosely equivalent to the philanthropic activities of the very wealthy circa 2018, conferring no material benefit but a substantial degree of social capital. Designing a hit holosuite program might not earn you any money, but it would get you an invite to the Federation equivalent of TED. Joseph Sisko charges nothing for meals at his creole restaurant, but earns the respect of his neighbours.
This is a fascinating article speculating on the mechanics of the Federation economy:
https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29ba...
We do know remarkably few things about life on Earth or a developed colony. On a starship you have duties, you work, and people are discriminated according to military rank (better living quarters, more holodeck privileges). But what do people do on Earth? If there is no money and instead civilian egalitarism what or who decides who lives in a mansion on the beach or a small city appartment? How does Picards brother „own“ the family vineyard? And what do people do with their life? Is there a 5 hour work week?
> If there is no money and instead civilian egalitarism what or who decides who lives in a mansion on the beach or a small city appartment? How does Picards brother „own“ the family vineyard?
The usual answer when this question is raised is either "they inherited the land" or "a committee decided the the Picards were the best for tending the vineyard".
Not 100% convincing to me but there is no better answer AFAIK.
> And what do people do with their life? Is there a 5 hour work week?
That one is easy, though. Let me quote Jean-Luc Picard: "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
Such an endeavor takes time.
The usual answer when this question is raised is either "they inherited the land" or "a committee decided the the Picards were the best for tending the vineyard".
Not 100% convincing to me but there is no better answer AFAIK.
> And what do people do with their life? Is there a 5 hour work week?
That one is easy, though. Let me quote Jean-Luc Picard: "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
Such an endeavor takes time.
Charles Stross incorporates economics into a lot of his writing. His two related novels Saturn's Children and Neptune's Brood are all about the economics of a post-human society. The latter of the two has a really interesting take on crypto-currency.
His Merchant Princes series is all about how a dimensional travelers exploit lack of economic knowledge in parallel worlds with less developed economies.
And Halting State and Rule 34, two near future novels, both touch on economics and related themes quite a bit.
His Merchant Princes series is all about how a dimensional travelers exploit lack of economic knowledge in parallel worlds with less developed economies.
And Halting State and Rule 34, two near future novels, both touch on economics and related themes quite a bit.
I really enjoy reading Charlie's work, especially the speculation around transition societies. You can add Accelerando to the list of his works that include some serious consideration of economics (in a way that whilst reading you don't think, 'eww - economics' :)
Actually, Singularity Sky also has a lot of good - and stealthy - economics material.
Actually, Singularity Sky also has a lot of good - and stealthy - economics material.
I'd also mention P. F. Hamilton's "Fallen Dragon", where FTL travel is possible, colonization of a few nearby Earth-like planets has happened... but it's not economically viable after all, which leads to some twisted consequences.
cjsawyer(2)
I don't even know how an article managed to mention dystopias and blade runner, in 2018, without even a mention of "Altered Carbon". That, and it ignores that "The Expanse" was a series of novels (I think there's like... eight books now?) a long time before it was a TV series. The novels go into a great deal more detail on the lives of the Belters and how the political situation depicted came about.
Altered Carbon makes no sense on an economic or sociological level. Maybe that’s why it’s ignored.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/02/the-ems-of-altered-car...
> Set many centuries in future, our descendants have colonized many star systems. Technological change then is very slow; someone revived after sleeping for centuries is familiar with almost all the tech they see, and they remain state-of-the-art at their job. While everyone is given a stack as a baby, almost all jobs are done by ordinary humans, most of whom are rather poor and still in their original body, the only body they’ll ever have. Few have any interest in living in virtual reality, which is shown as cheap, comfortable, and realistic; they’d rather die. There’s also little interest in noticeably-non-human android bodies, which could plausibly be pretty cheap.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/02/the-ems-of-altered-car...
> Set many centuries in future, our descendants have colonized many star systems. Technological change then is very slow; someone revived after sleeping for centuries is familiar with almost all the tech they see, and they remain state-of-the-art at their job. While everyone is given a stack as a baby, almost all jobs are done by ordinary humans, most of whom are rather poor and still in their original body, the only body they’ll ever have. Few have any interest in living in virtual reality, which is shown as cheap, comfortable, and realistic; they’d rather die. There’s also little interest in noticeably-non-human android bodies, which could plausibly be pretty cheap.
The expanse has a little bit of what might count as hard sci-fi and the rest is just milking it for adventure storytelling in an admittedly capturing manner.
The Expanse takes pains to treat space travel, combat, and so on in a hard sci-fi way to the point of making it seem rather mundane. But you're right- the point of the series is about the human element, which is actually relevant to the OP-
>> Okay, so what you’re really asking me there is if this is hard science fiction. The answer is an emphatic no. I have nothing but respect for well written hard science fiction, and I wanted everything in the book to be plausible enough that it doesn’t get in the way. But the rigorous how-to with the math shown? It’s not that story. This is working man’s science fiction. It’s like in Alien, we meet the crew of the Nostromo doing their jobs in this very blue collar environment. They’re truckers, right? Why is there a room in the Nostromo where water leaks down off of chains suspended from the ceiling? Because it looks cool and makes the world feel a little messy. It gives you the feel of the world. Ridley Scott doesn’t explain why that room exists, and when most people watch the film, it never even occurs to them to ask. What kind of drive does the Nostromo use? I bet no one walked out of the film asking that question. I wanted to tell a story about humans living and working in a well populated solar system. I wanted to convey a feeling for what that would be like, and then tell a story about the people who live there.
https://www.orbitbooks.net/interview/james-s-a-corey-2/
>> Okay, so what you’re really asking me there is if this is hard science fiction. The answer is an emphatic no. I have nothing but respect for well written hard science fiction, and I wanted everything in the book to be plausible enough that it doesn’t get in the way. But the rigorous how-to with the math shown? It’s not that story. This is working man’s science fiction. It’s like in Alien, we meet the crew of the Nostromo doing their jobs in this very blue collar environment. They’re truckers, right? Why is there a room in the Nostromo where water leaks down off of chains suspended from the ceiling? Because it looks cool and makes the world feel a little messy. It gives you the feel of the world. Ridley Scott doesn’t explain why that room exists, and when most people watch the film, it never even occurs to them to ask. What kind of drive does the Nostromo use? I bet no one walked out of the film asking that question. I wanted to tell a story about humans living and working in a well populated solar system. I wanted to convey a feeling for what that would be like, and then tell a story about the people who live there.
https://www.orbitbooks.net/interview/james-s-a-corey-2/
Altered Carbon treats the brain as a computer that can have its hard drive swapped out. That's really stupid and a good reason to ignore it. It's also particularly poorly written.
> Altered Carbon treats the brain as a computer that can have its hard drive swapped out
To be fair, that's just magical alien technology. Humans don't even know how it works.
> It's also particularly poorly written.
The writing is not great but not horrible either. The plot is far ahead of the writing style though.
To be fair, that's just magical alien technology. Humans don't even know how it works.
> It's also particularly poorly written.
The writing is not great but not horrible either. The plot is far ahead of the writing style though.
Blade Runner the film has remarkably little economics in it, it's more of a post-colonial treatment: some runaway slaves from the colonies have escaped back to the motherland, where they are subjected to pseudo-scientific tests to deem them subhuman so they can be executed.
The original PKD novel is much stranger and explicitly mentions a World War Three which has made a large number of animal species extinct. It's much more focused on the questions of mechanical substitutes for emotional relationships and the affect on the self.
The original PKD novel is much stranger and explicitly mentions a World War Three which has made a large number of animal species extinct. It's much more focused on the questions of mechanical substitutes for emotional relationships and the affect on the self.
The film Tomorrowland (by Brad Bird) is a wonderful take on this. Like Iron Giant, it bombed in theaters. And somewhat ironically, got some of the worst reviews of any good movie I can think of.
I love Tomorrowland and I recommend it to all my friends. I'm sad it bombed; I only discovered it accidentally on Netflix last year. Now I rewatch it from time to time to get a boost of motivation and positive energy.
I love this movie because it's positive about humans and future - which is unlike pretty much anything made in the last two decades. (Hell, it even goes meta on that point.)
I love this movie because it's positive about humans and future - which is unlike pretty much anything made in the last two decades. (Hell, it even goes meta on that point.)
As I started reading this, I had to recheck the date. Because this is such an old topic. I mean, haven't Stephenson and crew beaten it to death? And then he went and wrote D.O.D.O., which lacks even the thin edge of hope in Seveneves. Both of which I love, by the way.
Yeah, but he feels sort of bad about it...
http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/book/hieroglyph
All the way to the bank.
All the way to the bank.
SF is the only literary form to focus consistently on politics and economics. This goes back past Heinlein to the pulps of the 30s and 40s.
And further back, if you consider Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) to be SF. There is a flying island, after all.
SF and fantasy give authors much greater leeway to challenge cherished beliefs. Because it's all so preposterous.
SF and fantasy give authors much greater leeway to challenge cherished beliefs. Because it's all so preposterous.
But no mention of PKD (Philip K. Dick) and his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", on which the movie "Blade Runner" is based.. ?
To add to the recommendations, I’d like to mention Kim Stanley Robinson’s “New York 2140” which is heavily focused on the economic structures that he posits will arrive after future catastrophes driven by climate change. And the rather smug interludes are witty and amusing and somewhat depressing all at the same time.
I think this article could have used a few more Amazon affiliate links. I always enjoy a well-researched article with lots of irrelevant cross-references.
The examples in the articles used the economic ideas only as a building block, not as the primary motivation for writing the novels.
I don't believe that Blade Runner is about recession more than the AI and humanity. Where good fiction uses ideas to supplement world-building, bad one would build the world to illustrate an idea.
I don't believe that Blade Runner is about recession more than the AI and humanity. Where good fiction uses ideas to supplement world-building, bad one would build the world to illustrate an idea.
There's a big hole in Star Trek canon of how Earth transitioned from ST:TOS to the post-scarcity economy of ST:TNG. I would love to see Star Trek delve explore that era instead of rebooting and rehashing so many prequals.
Here is a transcript from an NPR interview with Paul Krugman about Saadia's book:
https://www.marketplace.org/2016/09/07/world/economist-paul-...