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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

#191

Post by boznz »

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…

Well all I can say is I did exactly that and produced an optimistic 370,000 word Sci-fi series which was totally utopian, and tried to be realistic and scientific (at least up to the point that any Sci-Fi novel could be) - https://rodyne.com/?p=1252

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#192

Post by boznz »

Hi Craig, I note you are also a Sci-Fi author and have a book called "ageless" which has a short interesting blurb, but no links to a reseller. It might be in draft, but if not you should probably include a link to it on your blog, every little helps.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#193

Post by nottorp »

shawn_w wrote: post #186
nottorp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you can drive car to your weekend house 6 miles away, you wont be taking Boeing 747 No, you will take that elusive flying car because you can afford the energy for it now. And it will be much less efficient than a 747.

Only 6 miles? That's personal jetpack distance.

Personal jetpack no good when it rains. So you'll own both.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#194

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#195

Post by partomniscient »

nathan_compton wrote: post #159
IAmBroom wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is exciting! If I live to be 70 I'll get to hear the response from the question my great-grandfather's generation sent to Omega-5!"

Life extension sort of solves this problem and is much more plausible.

But life extension will be for the rich. What's the point of extending your life if you're going to be surrounded by twats like Elon Musk all day every day...?

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#196

Post by metaPushkin »

That is not the goal of current geopolitics. In the 70s, the Tavistock Club was tasked with “To stamp out cultural optimism”. After that, the world began to slide into neoarchaism, where we are now, and futurism was essentially stolen from us. Unfortunately the collapse of the USSR made it very easy for this to happen and now we read about medieval madness in the middle east instead of flights to mars.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#197

Post by gcanyon »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #64
gcanyon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Something similar to this comes up in Death's End, the last book in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy.

Thanks! I haven't read it, and this was maybe forty years ago, and it was a short short story, so it has to be something else.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#198

Post by gcanyon »

cpeterso wrote: post #103
gcanyon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks! This wasn't it -- the story I read was a short short story, maybe only a page or two. It was basically:

   1. Humans despaired that the stars were impossibly far away, due to lightspeed limitations
   2. They realized it is possible to  to get around that
   3. They worked hard to try it out
   4. Surprise! They made it worse/it was worse.
   5. The end
I don't remember any characterization, or narrative, beyond the above.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#199

Post by ferguess_k »

dimal wrote: post #183
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…

I agree with all of this and hope it comes to pass. I don’t see how it’s possible without drastically changing the capitalist values that underpin our society. I think capitalism is the best way to structure an economy, but it’s a terrible way to structure a society. Nowadays, we use capitalist values as the benchmark for what matters in almost every context, and then we wonder why our society is a dystopia.

I agree. Capitalism definitely has its merit especially when comparing with Feudal, but then again, maybe we need something new after all those centuries.

I sincerely hope that we discover some serious alien stuffs (like TMA-1) so that humans can finally have a very good excuse to move ourselves to a new paradigm.

Re: We need more optimistic science fiction

#200

Post by Ukv »

Calwestjobs wrote: post #77
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we have any complex mechanism which works for last 100 years nonstop without fail ? For the following examples, this question is open, and you might have a different opinion whether they fit your opinion of "complex", but the following are candidates that I am aware of: The 10,000 Year Clock (Clock of the Long Now) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now https://www.10000yearclock.net/index.html The…

lets say they fit, but they do not work, people expect for them to work. but yes they are designed to work that long in stress free environment. your ship needs to be repaired on the way, do you need to have repair tools, materials, for that on board ? Seafaring cargo ship can not be going 100 years without repair. I bet space ship can not go either. What if your 3d printer on board which makes your repair tools brak…

> your ship needs to be repaired on the way, do you need to have repair tools, materials, for that on board ? Seafaring cargo ship can not be going 100 years without repair. I bet space ship can not go either.

Seems clear that yes, you would take tools and materials to allow for repairs, along with redundancies for any essential systems. If "your 3d printer on board which makes your repair tools brakes" you'd fix it using tools you already have available or printed out from one of your other 3D printers (even the ISS, far closer to Earth, has multiple).

It's true that creating, launching, and maintaining a generational ship would be a massive engineering undertaking, and underestimating the level of redundancy/repairs needed for some system could be what ends up causing a catastrophic issue, but the idea that we'd take zero tools for maintenance, expecting no repairs to be made at all, feels a frivolous reason to rule out generational ships.

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