This is what Neal Stephenson's Project Hieroglyph [1] was meant to be.
We need more optimistic science fiction
101–110 of 211 posts
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#102Jerry 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
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 wi…
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.
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#103On 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…
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.
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.
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
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".
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.
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, havin…
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.
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.
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
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?
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#108Earlier 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…
> 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,…
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.
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#109OK, 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…
>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.
Re: We need more optimistic science fiction
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.