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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

#131

Post by hoseja »

pkdpic wrote: post #25
luotuoshangdui wrote: post #2

Good point. Can someone recommend some good optimistic science fiction?

Literally anything written by Liu Cuxin. Not overtly positive all the time but always infused with a deep historical optimism about humanity and the power of science + engineering. Also I second Ministry for the Future. Reading the newer translation of We right now also and the first 1/2 or so is weirdly positive. Not what I remembered at all.

You and I must have read different books or imagine vastly different things under the term "optimism".

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#132

Post by hoseja »

o11c wrote: post #116
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #68

Earlier 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.

To be fair, we have a grand total of two independent examples to learn from. No form of economy/government will protect you from being pillaged by a more powerful neighbor. (There's some word I'm trying to think of that refers to international analysis, but I can't remember it ...)

"No form of economy/government will protect you from being pillaged by a more powerful neighbor."

Perhaps a form of government that doesn't turn you into a weaker neighbor?

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#133

Post by bmn__ »

ferguess_k wrote: post #28

I look forward to a world where people no longer need to sacrifice their curiosity to earn bread, clothes and basic housing. UBI would be a good start, but with the resources at hand we should be able to do more. I look forward to a world where potentials are promptly discovered and put to be nurtured, instead of being wasted or randomly thrown to the society. Every one willing to share what they have learned or made…

These are ideals of humanism.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#134

Post by bmn__ »

hoseja wrote: post #129
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.

What's the name of the common fallacy, "I can't imagine it therefore it cannot exist"?

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#135

Post by hoseja »

bmn__ wrote: post #134
hoseja wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (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.

What's the name of the common fallacy, "I can't imagine it therefore it cannot exist"?

Can you, truly?

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#136

Post by bccdee »

hoseja wrote: post #130
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.

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

> Will you steal from me to help them?

Oh, like Robin Hood?

I assume you're talking about taxes, but even literal theft in this context is the stuff of heroic folktales.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#137

Post by bccdee »

6510 wrote: post #126
beeflet wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 empt…

This is just slavery fanfiction. Mentally ill, uncooperative slaves would more likely have been killed to "send a message" to the others, and I expect functional addiction would be encouraged for manual labourers so long as it didn't harm productivity. I don't know what would lead you to draw assumptions like this (well, beyond the obvious).

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#138

Post by throwanem »

WorldPeas wrote: post #59
throwanem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500 words a day, dead or alive.

another piece of advice, when I wrote I used a keypuller to remove my backspace key. Following the example of Phillip K. Dick, think like a serial writer, uncanny ideas are the birth of great literature

I've been a serial writer, but never quite that serial! Good grief, though, I can't help but respect the commitment. It reminds me very slightly of the young Ellison, up there 'Under Glass' in that store picture window, throwing himself at the whole damn world the way he never could help himself from doing.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#139

Post by bccdee »

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…

> harbor as many people as possible who have no agency'

> Art, science, exploration. I don't know, take your pick

What's the point of art, then? Consuming art isn't "agentic," and the point of producing it is consumption. Ditto exploration—does discovered land serve any purpose in and of itself? Or is the point to see it and to live in it? And science—consider medicine. The discovery of a new medication itself is not the point; the point is that people take it and become better, which is not agentic.

Agency is a means to an end, and that end is experience. You can't justify life, individual or collective, in terms of agency.

> Still, we're told that hunger and disease must be eradicated before we do anything of importance.

Gee, I was unaware that we "hadn't been doing anything important" for the past 40,000 years of civilization.

> The homeless people i've interacted with [...] don't have some rich inner world

I don't honestly believe you've interacted with many homeless people that closely. I think you see them from a distance and assume they're basically urban wildlife. Mental health issues are not the obstacle to participation in society that you seem to think they are, and anyway, only a minority have mental health issues. And substance abuse—frankly, if I were homeless, I would probably take a lot of drugs too. What else am I going to do?

Homelessness is an extremely fixable issue, and countries that have supplied homeless people with long-term housing have seen their homeless populations vanish overnight. Obviously. What they're missing is homes. It's extremely difficult to get back on your feet without one, and the shelter system is completely inadequate.

> We already have a surplus of pretty much everything, and the result is that we are a society of wireheads

Do you have any idea how much rent costs in a big city? How much groceries cost? What are you talking about.

> I think happiness itself is orthogonal to a having meaningful life, and we shouldn't pursue it directly.

Then what's the point of living meaningfully? It doesn't sound like it's good for anything. "Meaning" gets thrown around a lot to indicate things we want to defend but cannot really justify on their own merits.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#140

Post by hoseja »

bccdee wrote: post #136
hoseja wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Will you steal from me to help them? Oh, like Robin Hood? I assume you're talking about taxes, but even literal theft in this context is the stuff of heroic folktales.

Huh? If you wanna go there by the way, Robin Hood stole from tax collectors even in the embellished fairytale. Also Lionheart was a bad king, away on vain adventure.
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