Comment by sjfjsjdjwvwvc
3 years ago
We need stories to be able to imagine and build the future.
I empathise with the author but he doesn’t really offer an alternative
3 years ago
We need stories to be able to imagine and build the future.
I empathise with the author but he doesn’t really offer an alternative
We could reserve the scifi for an esoteric inner circle of enlightened thinkers. People better able to handle the fire of scifi without munging things up.
The exoteric hoi polloi get pablum and propaganda. (They can't appreciate good scifi anyway). Give them moral fables wrapped in cowboys with laser-guns.
I'd watch this movie. Thank you
Maybe OP can burn any science fiction books they find in billionaires houses?
Lol. Yes, I'd tell them that it's "for their health". Everybody likes that one.
After the rain comes sun. After the sun comes rain again.
(Underwater Love, Smoke City, 1995)
With a particularly memorable film clip which was the first time I remember seeing the equivalent of what the Wachowski's later called Bullet Time.
And the film clip doesn't seem to be on YT...
Edit: can't find the full music video, but there's a clip just showing the "bullet time" bits:
https://youtu.be/ZWXafUHFQu4?si=KL7-ICpWKvUyXczb
"Science fiction, therefore, does not develop in accordance with the scientific method."
The author provides an alternative, but perhaps readers might miss it.
Science fiction is fiction not science.
The alternative to science fiction is the scientific method and the elucidation of scientific fact.
But these individuals are outcasts, dropouts, social failures.
Not interested in education generally.
Not interested in conventional occupations.
They believe they know enough yet they barely know anything.
Understanding computers is a far cry from understanding life.
It's arguable, due to the time committment required, the more one understands computers the less one probably understands "the real world".
Are these individuals interested in scientific fact, or are they more interested in fantasy and belief.
Like Elisabeth Holmes.
Charles Stross, the author of this op-ed, makes his living writing science fiction and fantasy.
"Stick to what you know." Unlike "tech billionaires", Stross knows what he is talking about.
The problem isn't imagining and building the future, it's the particular political narrative out of which the tech class is trying to build the future.
The problem is the future is being created by sociopathic, crony capitalist neo-reactionary cultists who want to rule over a broken world as its brutal philosopher kings, and consign everyone else into the mouth of Moloch. These are the people for whom the meme "Please don't create the Torment Nexus" was made. These people are the reason Ted Kaczynski is so popular amongst the tech underclass.
I don't know what the alternative is, but we should be concerned.
Well sure but why blame it on sci-fi? Sounds to me like those people would create the torment nexus with or without sci-fi. It’s not like it’s super hard to come up with the concept of e.g. colonising Mars.
Scifi can deliver an illusion of understanding. A metaphorical description of something very strange that the reader never actually experienced firsthand.
That's a deep kind of dream. Not saying the vision is entirely invalid, but maybe it isn't as intimate an understanding as the reader thinks.
It's a bit like religious literature that way.
The article isn't blaming sci-fi, it's blaming tech elites for missing or ignoring the deeper implications and warnings in what they read, and twisting it into some wierd, dark mirror utopian fetish.
I mean, one could just as well be a fan of sci-fi and realize the torment nexus is a bad thing, and not create it, even if one is a nerd with all the time, power and money in the world.
…is Ted Kaczynski popular among tech workers? Even the hardcore socialists I know aren’t really fans beyond acknowledging he had a good point or two.
At this point most people don't even know who he is let alone read his writing.
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For some reason he is worshipped on this site.
Unions and taxes are the alternative. Nobody should be a billionaire. If there wasn't such a concentration of wealth among a few, detached sociopaths we wouldn't have to worry about their pseudo-religious delusions.
Exactly—and I would add onto that regulations with teeth, especially antitrust regulations.
The gutting of antitrust under Reagan was instrumental in allowing the massive hyperconsolidation in all markets, with tech very prominent among them. The Biden administration's repudiation of the intellectually and morally bankrupt Chicago school interpretation of antitrust paves the way for a much better future, but it's going to take time, and it's going to need our support.
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Communism is the alternative.
Always has been.
The notion that we'd be able to design a society from the ground up in the manner dictated by Communism is fundamentally science fiction as well. This isn't unique to Communism, overall I think the degree a society can be controlled by anyone in power is significantly overstated. It's quite a parallel to the project of terraforming Mars. Nobody is doubting we might affect a change with policy or violence, but what's missing a degree of control in the magnitude and direction of that change.
Communism seems bad because Western countries still have a good quality of life for a large percentage of the population. The moment this stops being the case, people in the West will be clamoring for communism. This is just a matter of time and perspective.
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We can design it. That is what Congress should be doing by passing laws.
We have a system that is kind of working. Laws and regulations are ways to tweak the system, tune it for better performance.
So, lets say we notice that huge wealth inequality is having a negative impact, then we can tax the wealth, and yes, 'distribute' it, like to build roads. That does NOT mean suddenly we are communist.
People stuck in the Capitalist's/Communism argument, if they think it is binary, then really don't understand either one.
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Capitalism is bad; Communism… how do we describe excruciatingly bad?
We’ve tried it, it’s never worked, and because it relies on a fundamental denial of basic human freedoms, it will literally never work. The only question is how much misery it causes in the latest attempt.
Seems to be working reasonably well for China. Or maybe that’s not considered “real” communism.
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Nature is capitalistic. Big fish eat little fish.
A communist system would have to be a layer over a capitalist one. It would be maintained by a foundation of billionaire dictators.
But, assuming a system controlled by billionaire dictators, we probably don't need any "ism". Just dictate. Ideally to everybody's benefit.