Is Science Fiction the Opiate of the Geek Masses?

jimharris writes "After reading Geoff Ryman's Mundane SF website, where he promotes a new form of science fiction based on real science, I got to wondering if traditional science fiction is just the opiate of the geek masses? Most science fiction is based on speculative fantasy rather than hard science - the common example being stories built around faster-than-light travel. Einstein rules, and FTL space travel has about zero chance of ever existing. SF writer Ian McDonald replied in his blog, Heads down, there's going to be incoming... and a rather wide-ranging discussion and elaboration of the idea is held over at mundane-sf.blogspot.com. Proponents of the Mundane Manifesto readily admit that traditional science fiction is just harmless fun, but I have to ask, how many people out there have a positive view on life because they believe in Star Trek in the same way that other faithful do."

Comments

Mundane SF = Modern Novel?

[theluckyleper]

If you base your "SF" novel on currently accepted science only, then how can you do anything other than create a plot set in the present day? You can't know what "accepted" science will be like in the future... if you try to guess, you'll find yourself back in "standard" SF again.

Yes, FTL travel is far-fetched, but it's no less a fantasy than any other science-based predictions an author might make.

Re:Mundane SF = Modern Novel?

[NickFortune]

If you base your "SF" novel on currently accepted science only, then how can you do anything other than create a plot set in the present day?

Well, there is a certain amount of extrapolation allowable. For instance there are technologies that are theoretically possible and for which the science exsts, but which are currently beyond our engineering capabilities. A good example, up until just recently anyway, was the space elevator.

Not that the MSF manifest sounds terribly attractive, you understand

No

[DanthemaninVA1]

If we "believe in Star Trek..."? Are you kidding me? Science fiction is ENTERTAINMENT, not religion. It's a genre of books, film, and television, not a protestant denomination or somesuch. If you "believe in Star Trek," I feel sorry for you.

He is just a pessimist

[tftp]

Einstein rules, and FTL space travel has about zero chance of ever existing.

Yes, and Isaac Newton would just laugh if someone told him about weird quantum effects which we accept as obvious today.

In fact, we know that we know almost nothing about the fundamental nature of this Universe, and it's just pointless to discuss what one can and can not do with it.

Re:He is just a pessimist

[Draconix]

I'm moderately sure he does understand the problems. I do, yet I don't think FTL is impossible. The only thing I know to likely be impossible is to accellerate a mass to beyond the speed of light in normal spacetime. Any decent SF writer knows this, and will often note this in their work; any 'FTL' travel requires either the translation of mass to something without mass, or leaving normal spacetime in order to get from point A to point B faster than light. I've yet to have even read an SF novel in which a ship travels faster than light by accellerating a normal mass beyond the speed of light while keeping that mass within normal spacetime, and I've read hundreds of science fiction novels.

As for science fiction being fantasy... well, duh. There really isn't much difference between the two, except that science fiction is _usually_ speculative, and has more of a basis in our own reality, while other fantasy is free to explore the more farfetched. A careful writer can actually make it very difficult to tell the difference between SF and fantasy. (Frank Herbert, China Mieville, and others.)

As was kind of stated before in this topic, you can only make science fiction so 'realistic' before it's no longer science fiction, but simply realistic fiction.

Is it the opiate?

[Apreche]

Yes, yes it is. Notice how most real nerds will frolic and adore anything with a science fiction theme. Even if those things, stripped of their sci-fi theme, are terrible. For example Star Trek is just a soap opera, it happens to be in space. Same for shows like Farscape. And the same goes for many books and fan-fics about various sci-fi universes.

Not that all sci-fi is actually crap. I'm not one to deny the quality of original Star Wars or great novels from Asimov or Heinlein or Stephenson. But it seems to me that many nerds will like anything and everything sci-fi just because its sci-fi.

What bothers me the most is that I'm a somewhat well rounded geek, but most sci-fi TV shows really don't do it for me. And when all my friends like a show they act like I'm lying when I have no interest and they think its the best thing ever. Things are good because they are good, not because they have a robot, alien, spaceship, magic, etc.

Slashdot is the Opiate of the Geek Masses.

[dmoen]

This is based on how much time I spend reading science fiction, vs how much time I spend reading slashdot.

Doug Moen

Re:How about this.......

[0racle]

What the hell good is a story if it does not give you a new perspective on your own existence/nature?

I believe that it's then called entertainment, and its the whole reason most people watch movies, read books and play games. Whenever some form of entertainment starts to try and make me get some 'new perspective,' I go to something else. If I wanted that I'd stick with real life, the rest of this is to get my mind off things, to be entertained and relax a little.

So try technology-based predictions

[roystgnr]

Why would a story set in an interstellar spaceship suddenly become too mundane if that spaceship is limited to light speed? Would there be too much of the "present day" in a story about the lives of some of the quintillions of people an average solar system could support in orbital cities? Are nanomachines too boring when authors are careful not to turn them into thermodynamics-defying magic dust?

Nobody wants science fiction stripped of the fiction, some people just don't want it all stripped of the science. Science fantasy can still be entertaining, but it shouldn't be allowed to slip into otherwise consistent science fiction any more than traditional fantasy should corrupt traditional fiction. I suspect most of the Slashdot readers currently whining about how "why does everything have to be based on real facts" would turn the TV off in disgust if the next episode of "24" featured a nuclear bomb stolen by leprechauns or if "CSI" started occasionally solving mysteries with magic spells.

Re:Ya think?

[Thangodin]

Star Trek functions in much the same way as religions in that it predicts dark times but eventual triumph. It encourages the belief that no matter what happens, we'll get through it. Sartre might have called this a form or collective bad faith, but frankly, I see nothing wrong with this. Pure defeatism just isn't a productive attitude. Pessimists may have a more accurate estimation of their own abilities, but optimists are more likely to succeed. We need both.

The main upside to the Star Trek 'prophecies' is that it is supposed to be based upon cooperation amongst the entire human race (tribalism is death), requires the application of hard science to address our current problems, and stresses that no hand from the sky is going to reach down and clean our diapers for us. We're going to have to do it ourselves. I'll take that over the Great Wet Nurse in the Sky any day. The boneyard of history is littered with civilizations whose motto was "God will provide."

Does it serve as an opiate? It probably does...to trekkies. But then, the really hardcore fanatic is always winged out on something. Better "Live long and prosper" than "Die, unbeliever!" I prefer my loonies sedated rather than armed.

Sci fi is real life, pretending to be fake

[iabervon]

Hard science fiction, done well, is generally an exploration of the consequences of a universe which could be real but happens not to be (or isn't currently). Consider Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars series; it raises a huge number of issues that arise as consequences of technology which is not yet available, but probably will be. When the real world catches up, we will have to deal with these issues, and it's probably worth starting now. (E.g., if we find ways to cure everything at a high cost, which seems likely, how will we deal with rich people who live forever, which the poor die of old age and the young have reproductive urges to replenish populations that aren't dying?)

Soft science fiction, done well, is generally an exploration of aspects of how the universe really is, projected for expository purposes into a universe that is different in many ways. The original Star Trek, for example, was a discussion of 1960s American gender and race relations, with a veneer of unreality that made it acceptable to broadcast in explicit detail. Aliens and FTL travel were just props; the vision of the future was a black woman on the bridge and nobody finding it notable.