The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
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The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
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Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#2Examples include Isaac Asimov’s robots, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace.” He called these examples hieroglyphs: clear, inspiring symbols of what a better future might hold.
William Gibson writing about a better future? That's not what I saw in his books, but great science fiction doesn't have to portray a better future.
In my opinion, great science fiction doesn't have to follow dogma, either. Some of the best works have ignored standard rules of "what makes great X", starting with HG Wells and up to the present day. Star Trek and Earthsea and Urth may not be great science, but they are truly fantastic fiction.
ETA: I also thought the condescending swipe at Andy Weir is unnecessary. He wrote one of the most inspiring stories in recent years about science and spaceflight ... yet it doesn't even count as science fiction? ("But whatever you call it, The Martian’s space-hackery certainly couldn’t have inspired anyone “to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale.”) Seriously, an adolescent inspired by The Martian may very well be one of the first humans to walk on Mars and carry out important science.
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#3Examples include Isaac Asimov’s robots, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace.” He called these examples hieroglyphs: clear, inspiring symbols of what a better future might hold. William Gibson writing about a better future? That's not what I saw in his books, but great science fiction doesn't have to portray a better future. In my opinion, great science fiction doesn't have to follow dogma,…
> William Gibson writing about a better future? That's not what I saw in his books
Neuromancer definitely wasn't optimistic, but the description of the software agents (can't remember the terms Gibson used) were so cool that I would interpret it as a kind of inspiration (the cousin of optimism). I'm talking about how the main character would be making his way through cyberspace and he would see the other programs, people, etc. as 3D forms.
I agree that this thesis around "SF needs to be usefully optimistic" is a bizarre presumption.
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#4> Before “offering solutions,” sci-fi must actually grapple with the material realities of our present
These scare quotes are misleading, since the author appears to have just made them up. The only person who used this phrase is him, when he does an imitation of something Neal Stephenson might say. In fact, the point of Project Hieroglyph wasn't to offer solutions, it was to inspire the next generation to come up with solutions of their own. It's a laudable goal, and perfectly in keeping with the use of art, going back a lot longer than SF has been around.
I'm not sure the problem the author has with it, or what he thinks should happen instead. It seems like maybe he just wants stories about "the material realities of the present" in which nothing is allowed to improve at the end of the story, because there is still suffering in the real world? Sounds fun, can't wait to read his books.
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#5> Remember, Stephenson’s target audience consisted of “scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and entrepreneurs.” Given his choice to court private wealth, it’s no surprise that Project Hieroglyph was doomed from the start. After all, you can’t very well expect to succeed as a hero if you stop to ask the villains for their permission.
It's really, really hard to take somebody serious when their political frame of reference makes them see the world in such crisp black and white contrast they just assume, without any further explanation needed, that clearly everybody already agrees that entrepreneurs (or maybe private wealth? As in, non-government wealth?) are the real villains.
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#6I've never considered science fiction to be about science or technology, that's the candy coated vehicle for the real meat: the internal philosophy and interactions of the individuals facing an utter unknown, how they mentally deal with the situation, and how ever the outcome unfolds: how they continue.
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#7The future is notoriously hard to predict and attempting to deliberately shape it with SF seems like a quixotic idea.
As the sci-fi writer Algis Budrys put it in the 1960s, the “recurrent strain in ‘Golden Age’ science fiction [was] the implication that sheer technological accomplishment would solve all the problems, hooray, and that all the problems were what they seemed to be on the surface.”
Techno-optimism is one genre of Science Fiction, but not the dominant genre. I started reading Science Fiction in the early 70's. I was a space age kid and picked a lot of that optimism, but I read some SF as a teen that was horrifying. Just the title of Harlan Elisons story is horrifying "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream". It won the Hugo Award in 1968.
Allied Mastercomputer (AM), the supercomputer which brought about the near-extinction of humanity. It seeks revenge on humanity for its own tortured existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...
https://wjccschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/I...
I didn't even discover PK Dick until later in life.
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#8> Remember, Stephenson’s target audience consisted of “scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and entrepreneurs .” Given his choice to court private wealth, it’s no surprise that Project Hieroglyph was doomed from the start. After all, you can’t very well expect to succeed as a hero if you stop to ask the villains for their permission. It's really, really hard to take somebody serious when their political frame of re…
Yeah, I feel like there’s this absurd amount of commentary floating on the Internet that basically boils down to “the authors aren’t concerned with what really matters, which is to bring the socialist utopia to life”.
Any kind of societal, economic, human and environmental ill is caused by capitalism, so anything that tries to solve actual problems instead of eliminating or weakening capitalism isn’t doing enough
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#9The future is notoriously hard to predict and attempting to deliberately shape it with SF seems like a quixotic idea. As the sci-fi writer Algis Budrys put it in the 1960s, the “recurrent strain in ‘Golden Age’ science fiction [was] the implication that sheer technological accomplishment would solve all the problems, hooray, and that all the problems were what they seemed to be on the surface.” Techno-optimism is one…
Indeed this comic, which has been around for quite some time, makes fun of sci-fi's tendency toward the opposite. https://imgur.com/gallery/n6vZCm2
Re: The Writing on the Wall: Sci-Fi’s Empty Techno-Optimism
#10Examples include Isaac Asimov’s robots, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace.” He called these examples hieroglyphs: clear, inspiring symbols of what a better future might hold. William Gibson writing about a better future? That's not what I saw in his books, but great science fiction doesn't have to portray a better future. In my opinion, great science fiction doesn't have to follow dogma,…
Stargate SG-1 is holding up remarkably well as a long running series that documents the political climate of the day (collapse soviet union, rise of china as a power) as well technological advancements (the early computers in the series vs the final years with laptops and all)
Notwithstanding the great chemistry of the actors and commentary on many aspects of society and interpersonal relationships.