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A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

ursulakleguin.com

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Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#81

Post by [deleted] »

gumby wrote: post #29
hungryhobbit wrote: post #9

Le Guin is a master of fiction, period. While she's very different from modern sci-fi/fantasy, her work is almost as foundational as Tolkien, Lewis, or Asimov. Take her Earthsea series (which was very loosely adapted as a Studio Ghibli movie). It's much slower paced than modern fantasy. Barely anyone dies (no Red Weddings here), and it almost reads more like an extended fairy tale. But when you start reading it you c…

A side point: when you say “Lewis” I assume you mean Charles Staple Lewis, not Sinclair Lewis. I find it hard to consider the former “foundational”. It was and is popular (much to the annoyance of his buddy Tolkien), but hardly influential in the way of JRRT (nobody writes poor pastiches on Narnia the way innumerable derivatives have been done on Middle Earth). As for Asimov, well, one can argue about his long term i…

[deleted]

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#82

Post by scruple »

airstrafer wrote: post #61

> Technology is the active human interface with the material world. > But the word is consistently misused to mean only the enormously complex and specialised technologies of the past few decades, supported by massive exploitation both of natural and human resources. This sentiment reminds me of the email steve jobs sent himself shortly before he died: > I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I…

A billionaire discovers society exists.

> Technology is the active human interface with the material world.

It's also the exact interface that wealth allows you to bypass.

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#83

Post by gumby »

pixl97 wrote: post #56
gumby wrote: post #34

Science fiction, even more than historical fiction, is always about the present, which is why SF novels rarely age well. But good literature is good literature and she sure had the knack, which is why I believe her work will continue to be read for quite some time to come. In her brief essay (more of a note), she uses the word “technology” to invoke its own root: τέχνη, just means practical art (hence artifact). The…

When you look at the DNA of a creature it is filled with all kind of stuff that we consider junk and we have no idea what it does. But then some new disease or predator shows up and it turns out that DNA had a use, but you could not have predicted it before hand. The issue with knowledge is it's really hard to know what bits of it are going to be important in your future. Learning powerpoint probably put food on the…

But that’s really the opposite of τέχνη, isn’t it? It’s an emergent phenomenon rather than one guided by teleology or at least by deliberation.

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#84

Post by psunavy03 »

watwut wrote: post #64
xg15 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that was basically the Disney/Spielberg formula, which got overdone. > There are good and bad and good must always win and if bad thing happening is always punishment for moral failure forced formula got overfed. I mean, maybe there are different moral horizons behind this. I would expect some basic "doing good is in the end more successful than doing evil" morality in shows. The alternate message seems to be a…

> I would expect some basic "doing good is in the end more successful than doing evil" morality in shows. I dont and find it annoying when it is there all the time. It removes the tension too. Good people end up poor or die of cancer, attempts to save climate or prevent wars failed, those who fight fascism find themselves maligned and out of power. > The alternate message seems to be an uncaring universe where it pla…

I don't need art that reminds me of how shit the real world can be. I see that every day. Why would I need to have my face rubbed in it? No, there are people who can aspire to greater things and people who think nothing can ever get better, and their art reflects it.

Nihilists who call themselves "sophisticated."

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#85

Post by protocolture »

Nuance.

She uses science and technology to amazing affect to tell the story she wanted to tell in Dispossessed. Key points, the starship that travels between the moon and the sun, the freight rail system etc.

She also uses it poorly, in the creation of the weird Ansible device.

I understand the Ansible is required for some of her other works but tbh leaving the creation of instantaneous interstellar communication as a footnote without societal impact feels like a bit of a letdown.

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#86

Post by protocolture »

xg15 wrote: post #36
hungryhobbit wrote: post #9

Le Guin is a master of fiction, period. While she's very different from modern sci-fi/fantasy, her work is almost as foundational as Tolkien, Lewis, or Asimov. Take her Earthsea series (which was very loosely adapted as a Studio Ghibli movie). It's much slower paced than modern fantasy. Barely anyone dies (no Red Weddings here), and it almost reads more like an extended fairy tale. But when you start reading it you c…

> Barely anyone dies (no Red Weddings here) Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore. In fact, even that is just the bare minimum. To really make an impac…

>Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore.

The opposing view is weirder, why should characters be preserved for consumption by the audience? Death is something that can happen, let it happen. I quite like KJ Parkers 2 of Swords, where most PoV characters are dead by the end of the trilogy. Theres a real bittersweet note where, 2 of the remaining characters, one is basically trying to get killed and the other keeps bending the law and releasing him, unable to stomach even one more, no matter how deserved.

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#87

Post by xg15 »

protocolture wrote: post #86
xg15 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Barely anyone dies (no Red Weddings here) Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore. In fact, even that is just the bare minimum. To really make an impac…

>Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore. The opposing view is weirder, why should characters be preserved for consumption by the audience? Death is some…

> The opposing view is weirder, why should characters be preserved for consumption by the audience?

I don't see how characters are "consumed" by the audience, unless the audience is vampires.

But my answer would be: Because the entire story exists for the audience. There isn't actually a separate universe that lives on independently of the people watching or reading the story.

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#88

Post by scared_together »

arthurjj wrote: post #31

>And all science fiction is, in one way or another, technological. Even when it’s written by people who don’t know what the word means. I think this goes too far and then everything is science fiction? She talks about low tech. Is Hatchet science fiction?

The essay is more concerned with the definition of “technology” than the definition of “science fiction”. It merely points out that distinguishing between hard and soft sci-fi by the presence of technology is folly, since even Bronze Age technology is still technology.

Hatchet has technology - the titular hatchet, along with the airplane that crashed and the various items the protagonist collects at the end. But the presence of technology in the work does not determine if it is science fiction or not.

This is straying away from the article, but if Hatchet were dictated to a tribe who didn’t have metallurgy, perhaps it could be perceived as science fiction.

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#89

Post by xorcist »

watwut wrote: post #52
xg15 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Barely anyone dies (no Red Weddings here) Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore. In fact, even that is just the bare minimum. To really make an impac…

It is backslash against years and years of shows where you are 100% certain characters will be unharmed. Cumulatively, shows lost tension for many of us - there were no stakes whatsoever. You have massive fight, but there is no excitement about the fight, because it is basically just an elaborate dance part. There are good and bad and good must always win and if bad thing happening is always punishment for moral fail…

> years and years of shows where you are 100% certain characters will be unharmed

Unless your culture sphere consists solely of children's books and Disney movies, that is just a bizarre thing to say. Heroic deaths and tragedys has been a staple of storytelling since the dawn of time. Greeks even had a word for it. Any random book (for adults) during the past several centuries is likely to include the subject, with a hundful exceptions of course. But a classic way to build tension in storytellin is with a tragedy.

Re: A Rant About “Technology” (2005)

#90

Post by protocolture »

xg15 wrote: post #87
protocolture wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore. The opposing view is weirder, why should characters be preserved for consumption by the audience? Death is some…

> The opposing view is weirder, why should characters be preserved for consumption by the audience? I don't see how characters are "consumed" by the audience, unless the audience is vampires. But my answer would be: Because the entire story exists for the audience. There isn't actually a separate universe that lives on independently of the people watching or reading the story.

>But my answer would be: Because the entire story exists for the audience.

Fan service maximalism? Authors should avoid treading on favourite characters, erring on the side of making them immortal?

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