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North Korean science fiction

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Re: North Korean science fiction

#131

Post by avar »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #72
throw1234651234 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it even worth reading? Genuine question. I thought it was campty sort of satirical old-timey stuff, but I never read it.

Sci Fi is often a way to talk about the present without getting bogged down in the minutae of accurate facts and "what's realistic" for critics. Whether that's worth reading depends on you. It's a big genre too, different authors and works don't all cover the same themes. If you want to see someone experience about what it's like to be a foreigner in a racist society, Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series explores that.…

I'd like to second the Culture, but just to add (minor spoilers ahead) that it's also a distopian depending on your point of view, which makes it even better.

In the Culture all real agency humanity has is lost to machines (Minds).

Humans have about as much say in important matters in the Culture as dogs do in ours, when anything really important happens (e.g. the events of Excession) they're not even involved.

For any individual human it's a utopia, I'd probably prefer to live in the Culture, but whether it's a good thing to aspire to is something the reader needs to decide for themselves.

Re: North Korean science fiction

#132

Post by pjc50 »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
havelhovel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the West what’s available is the product of people making what they want to make with relatively few restrictions.

I so wish that that were true. No, a lot more is made than what is available to you.

[flagged]

Re: North Korean science fiction

#133

Post by pjc50 »

judge2020 wrote: post #57
narrator wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jules Verne is fun to read in this regard because the people who organized to go to the moon in "From Earth To The Moon" were simply part of a gun club that chose to fund the effort privately, not the government. It reflects how people had a different relationship with the government in the 19th century. Before the income tax, people like Rockefeller would just bail companies out during panics from their personal ban…

While Elon is the only one with the intuition to bail out a company as large as Twitter, there probably are a few dozen Rockefeller CEOs of various SV/tech-adjacent companies that can and do use their power to command acquisitions of medium size startups that have promising tech but suffer from issues of cash flow or business strategy.

s/bail out/fly into the ground/

Re: North Korean science fiction

#134

Post by pjc50 »

narrator wrote: post #31
1shot37291007 wrote: post #9

> "Stories often touch on topics like space travel, benevolent robots, disease-curing nanobots, and deep-sea exploration. They lack aliens and beings with superpowers. Instead, the real superheroes are the exceptional North Korean scientists and technologists who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders." Here is an interesting symmetry as reflected by ideological mirrors. In NK, the state sanctioned imaginal…

Jules Verne is fun to read in this regard because the people who organized to go to the moon in "From Earth To The Moon" were simply part of a gun club that chose to fund the effort privately, not the government. It reflects how people had a different relationship with the government in the 19th century. Before the income tax, people like Rockefeller would just bail companies out during panics from their personal ban…

> Private individuals were massively more economically powerful and that's were people looked for progress

Did they? The people themselves looked? Or did the private individuals get to fund a large amount of libraries and educational institutions with "[your name here] supports progress" instead?

The peak of this may have been Fordlandia, Ford's attempt at doing a private Latin American colony, which was a spectacular failure.

Interestingly, Verne has a book about private libertarian-separatist rich men: "Propeller Island". It ends in infighting and disaster.

Re: North Korean science fiction

#135

Post by calderknight »

devcpp wrote: post #112
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I so wish that that were true. No, a lot more is made than what is available to you.

Not really. These days, if you have talent, spreading your work is as easy as making a Reddit or HN post and get traction in no time at all. What sinks probably isn't worth much attention. Of course, works are also made and not published anywhere, but people are free to stay a hermit and not publish their work.

My experience with Reddit is that what doesn't sink isn't worth much attention.

Re: North Korean science fiction

#136

Post by consilient »

avar wrote: post #131
AlotOfReading wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sci Fi is often a way to talk about the present without getting bogged down in the minutae of accurate facts and "what's realistic" for critics. Whether that's worth reading depends on you. It's a big genre too, different authors and works don't all cover the same themes. If you want to see someone experience about what it's like to be a foreigner in a racist society, Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series explores that.…

I'd like to second the Culture, but just to add (minor spoilers ahead) that it's also a distopian depending on your point of view, which makes it even better. In the Culture all real agency humanity has is lost to machines (Minds). Humans have about as much say in important matters in the Culture as dogs do in ours, when anything really important happens (e.g. the events of Excession) they're not even involved. For a…

> In the Culture all real agency humanity has is lost to machines (Minds). Humans have about as much say in important matters in the Culture as dogs do in ours.

The Culture is explicitly a direct democracy, it's just that the books are mostly about what is effectively a somewhat-rogue intelligence agency's activities in other civilizations.

> Politics in the Culture consists of referenda on issues whenever they are raised; generally, anyone may propose a ballot on any issue at any time; all citizens have one vote. Where issues concern some sub-division or part of a total habitat, all those - human and machine - who may reasonably claim to be affected by the outcome of a poll may cast a vote. Opinions are expressed and positions on issues outlined mostly via the information network (freely available, naturally), and it is here that an individual may exercise the most personal influence, given that the decisions reached as a result of those votes are usually implemented and monitored through a Hub or other supervisory machine, with humans acting (usually on a rota basis) more as liaison officers than in any sort of decision-making executive capacity; one of the few rules the Culture adheres to with any exactitude at all is that a person's access to power should be in inverse proportion to their desire for it. The sad fact for the aspiring politico in the Culture is that the levers of power are extremely widely distributed, and very short (see entry on megalomaniacs, above). The intellectual-structural cohesion of a starship of course limits the sort of viable votes possible on such vessels, though as a rule even the most arrogant craft at least pretend to listen when their guests suggest - say - making a detour to watch a supernova, or increasing the area of parkland on-board.

Re: North Korean science fiction

#137

Post by the-dude »

tetris11 wrote: post #8
calimoro78 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share some examples of Soviet SF? Should be quite exciting.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were pretty prolific during this time (often writing in secret, and reciting their works only to trusted friends). "The Doomed City" is one of the best pieces of philosophical scifi I've ever read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomed_City

Never seen those names before this week, apparently there are new translations in 2023 : https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-beetle-in-the-anthill...

Re: North Korean science fiction

#138

Post by consilient »

lgeorget wrote: post #121
c_crank wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality: Americans have not been ruled by the superhero-like ultra rich for decades, and are starting to notice that little is improving and much is getting worse.

Aren't all recent US presidents ultra-rich?

No. Most were in the $1-10 million net worth range before taking office. Former presidents, of course, can easily make tens of millions on book sales and speaking fees. But that's still small time compared to the owners of major firms.

Re: North Korean science fiction

#139

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

ShinTakuya wrote: post #117
p-e-w wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SF is pretty much always about the current day. I'm not sure that's true, although in the past two decades or so it may have been. But going back to the classics of 1960s and 1970s SF, I just don't see it. Sure, The Forever War is a thinly veiled allegory of Vietnam, but how are Lord of Light , Dreamsnake , The Left Hand of Darkness , or even Dune about their "current days"? Dune seems prescient today because of it…

Dune very much commented on the contemporarybproblems of its day. A big theme was around the scramble for Africa which, while over, was still affecting the continent in various ways as decolonisation continued. I agree that the extent of the commentary varies, and Dune is light handed in terms of political hot topics, but it was certainly there.

> A big theme (of Dune) was around the scramble for Africa

An extractive industry moves into in the desert for an extremely valuable substance that is vital for transport, while the indigenous inhabitants are overlooked. Religious fervour and holy war. I think that the Middle-east and oil are the most obvious parallels.

It is indeed "commenting on the contemporary problems of its day".

Re: North Korean science fiction

#140

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

narrator wrote: post #34
AdamH12113 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Roadside Picnic" is a well-known novel that was the basis for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of video games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic

Roadside picnic is so ridiculously melancholy. Everyone in that book is so depressed! I also don't think I've ever seen so much smoking and drinking in a sci-fi book. You could tell the brothers were really not enjoying communism.

Try their other book, "The Doomed City".

it's as upbeat as the title suggests.

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