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We need more optimistic science fiction

craig-russell.co.uk

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Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#121

Post by beeflet »

bccdee wrote: post #113
Retric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

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…

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.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#122

Post by EMIRELADERO »

beeflet wrote: post #120
bccdee wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agricult…

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!

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#123

Post by Retric »

bccdee wrote: post #113
Retric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

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…

> 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...

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#124

Post by Animats »

socalgal2 wrote: post #38
Animats wrote: post #15

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 every…

- 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…

> 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.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#125

Post by 6510 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #75
snowwrestler wrote: post #48

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 op…

> 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…

> 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.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#126

Post by 6510 »

beeflet wrote: post #120
bccdee wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agricult…

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.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#127

Post by bazoom42 »

AIPedant wrote: post #6

On Twitter, Colin Fraser pointed out that Black Mirror was somewhat optimistic in that the horrible evil technology actually works as described[1]. 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 canno…

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.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#128

Post by hoseja »

ben_w wrote: post #44
Legend2440 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#129

Post by hoseja »

snowwrestler wrote: post #48

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 op…

> (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.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#130

Post by hoseja »

bccdee wrote: post #115
beeflet wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are they my relatives? Are they desperate because their own preventable actions? Will you steal from me to help them?
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