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Science Fiction Writers Discuss The Future
An Anonymous Reader writes "Locus Magazine asks prominent science fiction writers Bruce Sterling, Kim Stanley Robinson, Cory Doctorow, Pat Murphy, Norman Spinrad, and Ken Wharton to extrapolate the future from current trends in the environment, copyright, terrorism, war, world government, and the upcoming Presidential election. How do large groups make decisions on single issues? Are centralized global systems of governance the way to go? Are stateless diasporas the driving force behind the economic development of India and China? Will there always be war? The answer to these questions and more in a round-table conducted by legendary science fiction writer John Shirley."
Will there always be war?
The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continous
...if you look at it one way, it's easy. In the simplest sense, the left is about change, the right is about preserving the status quo. Science fiction writers are preoccupied with change because they speculate about the future. Then again, I think that vastly oversimplifies the libertarian tone and anti-fascism of much science fiction. Science fiction authors tend to look into the future and expect the consolidation of powers, which scares them. Because they think more than the average person about the negative side of the current course of humankind, they are more inclined to want to change it.
I think that's true. You don't find many current republican SF writers, because Bush turned the Republican party into the Party of the Fundimentalist Church. You don't see anti-stem-cell preaching in SF works.
You have to admit, science fiction writers tend to be pro-science (duh) and the Bush administration doesn't have a very good reputation with respect to science.
Science fiction writers do seem to be overwhelmingly liberal. Given the recent news story about brain differences between liberals and conservatives, the liberals having more empathy, this makes some sense. Writers need empathy to write from different character points of view. Just a theory.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
No,no,no. Heinlein lived in a different era. He was definitely anti-Communist, but he was also very anti-authoritarian as well. His books have lots of sometimes kinky sex stuff, promote racial and (sometimes) gender equality. He was, again, more-or-less libertarian and anti-authoritarian (which if you remember was embodied to many of that age by Stalinism) in many ways, though I think his economic views drifted over the course of the spectrum during his life, becoming more conservative with time.
Hmm... maybe I really missed something while skimming the article, but the tone I got was disappointment, not hate. These people seemed to really care about the direction that the US is going. Do we now equate criticism with hate in this country? I think that mentality scares me more about the right-wingers than anything else about them.
Parents will scold their children when they misbehave, but that does not mean that they hate them. They scold them because they love them and they care how they develop. America is still a young country, and it does still do stupid shit -- and will under any party. But we should never let our country get to the point that the citizens cannot condemn the actions of our govenment when it does do something wrong. We citizens are still the stewards of our government.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
You, sir, are a master of understatement.
Science fiction writers do seem to be overwhelmingly liberal.Given the recent news story about brain differences between liberals and conservatives, the liberals having more empathy, this makes some sense. Writers need empathy to write from different character points of view. Just a theory.
If by "liberal" you mean "open-minded," sure. If you mean "liberal" as "leftie," there are plenty of counterexamples in science fiction, such as Robert A. Heinlein, and (ugh) ol' homphobic Orson Scott C*rd.
...and based on that, I'm completely disinclined to listen to anything else he has to say. They marketed the talk around the idea that it would be based on his vision of what the world will be like when manufacturing processes catch up with simulation technology, but it was really just one big self-indulgent orgy of buzzwords and vapid counterculture. I'm a pretty intelligent guy, I love science fiction, and I'm perfectly willing to listen to smart people propound off-the-wall viewpoints, but I also have a pretty good bullshit detector, and Bruce literally didn't say anything the entire evening. I don't know how he got away with it: I guess you make up enough weird terms like "spime wrangling" and people just assume you must be cool.
The highlight of his address was when he claimed that Steve Jobs has cancer because the air isn't clean enough. After that, I basically stopped listening.
(b) It is probably true that there's a "left wing" bias among SF writers, but then, there's a similar bias among the population of people who are literate and well-educated.
Point (b) there is nothing to be particularly smug about, of course -- if we tried hard we could probably come up with examples of intelligent and well meaning people screwing things up, and we could also find examples (not necessarily the same ones) of people who regard themselves as really smart, but on closer examination seem to have an inflated opinion...
But there does indeed seem to be a correlation between the dumbing down of the United States and the the swing to the right. Take your choice: Cause, effect, or coincidence.
No, it's a known fact
S ingularity/
"Singularity, The. The Techno-Rapture. A black hole in the Extropian worldview whose gravity is so intense that no light can be shed on what lies beyond it... There is no clear definition, but usually the Singularity is meant as a future time when societal, scientific and economic change is so fast we cannot even imagine what will happen from our present perspective, and when humanity will become posthumanity."
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/
There's no way a human can imagine what lies behind that horizon, so what can one expect from SF writers today?
Their leftist blather of the folks intervied is a proof they've got nothing new to tell us.