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

Hard-SCI Fi is NOT fantasy based

[Com2Kid]

This is why I rarely read the newer Science Fiction authors (newer meaning after the 1960s!), I prefer the older authors who actually had Doctorates of Science!

(or, in many cases, were on their way towards getting a doctorate in science and writing Science Fiction is how they paid for, in part, their education!)

Often times you can learn a lot about real world science from these authors (albiet some what dated now, as many areas of science have long since surpassed the knowledge possessed when these stories were originally written), something that I find lacking in modern day science fiction.

Re:Hard-SCI Fi is NOT fantasy based

[mbrother]

Check out my first novel, Star Dragon, which came out in paperback earlier this year from Tor. I have a PhD in astrophysics.

The other current sf writer with a PhD in astronomy is Alastair Reynolds, and I like his work.

There are quite a few physicists with PhDs who write great books (Benford and Brin come to mind) and some in other fields like Computer Science (Vernor Vinge). And there are a few others who don't have doctorates, but write very good hard sf (Joe Haldeman, Greg Bear, Syne Mitchell, and Wil McCarthy). You do have to look around a little harder, but that's the name of the game, isn't it.

What in the...?

[AstrumPreliator]

I always thought the phrase, "science fiction" was pretty self-explanitory myself. Why in the world would you want to limit authors to only using current science? Let's just assume for a second that we do know everything and our current model of the universe is 100% accurate and complete (which is such a laughable statement in itself), wouldn't it be more fun to escape into a different universe, one where FTL travel is possible, one where anything is possible? That's the point of fiction. Science fiction wasn't meant to be a rehash of your college physics book with a storyline thrown in, it was meant to be fun.

Re:Who are these 'faithful'???

[Mornelithe]

What exactly is the problem with what he said?

Are you saying that people who believe in religion don't use it as a basis for a positive outlook on life?

Or are you saying that people who have faith in a religion or something similar should not be called 'faithful'?

Or are you saying that believing that in the future, we will live in an egalitarian society without poverty is somehow fundamentally different than believing that the universe was created/is guided by a benevolent, omnipotent entity?

Or have I missed something? I'm just curious.

Try this perspective

[neostorm]

I don't beleive he's saying that a large portion of people only find life worth living because of some geek, sci-fi fiction universe. At least not in that pitiful perspective that you can read it as. I believe what he's saying is that it is human nature to wonder about the unknown, and we find that teasing our imaginations of the unknown through fictional stories and universes like "Star Trek" and the like, satisfy a large part of our wonder despite being highly unplausible. Not only because of thier ability to paint a potential future for mankind, but also paint a positive one.
So what exactly is wrong with hoping that a future of peacful space travel and exploration that does not involve wanton destruction, prejudice and war (all things currently and constantly plaguing our race on this earth), is a bad thing? That thought alone *does* allow me to be a bit happier in life, because if I look around me right now, there aren't a whole lot of things our people are doing to making life better for everyone as a whole.
If you take a gander at the world today you can't help but see the damage the human race brings on itself and it's environment. If you see optimistic things though the extincting of animals, controlling populace through fear and war, and the growing of individual goverments world-power over controlled medicines, unhealthy food production and inequality in living conditions, then *your* opiate is to lie to yourself.

Hard-SCIENCE is SOMETIMES fantasy based

[da5idnetlimit.com]

I seem to remember that one Arthur C. Clark has been officialy recognized as the "inventor" of the satelite concept...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._C larke
And yes, he has a first class degree in mathematics and physics at King's College, London...

Lets see, hmm, yes it was in a sci-book.

I agree with having "knowledgeable" people writin sci-fi, but I also remember all I read about nuclear fusion and now I see it made available(ok, in actual testing and producing actual electricity) in a breadbox sized box...

What I really like about sci-fi is that sometimes you see In Real Life situations or Technologies that you already read about, already had a time to dream or think about or appreciate the implications and possibilities of something that is, for the rest of the world, new.

Lets take fusion and/or betavoltaics... (both recent /. articles)

Now take everything you ever read on fusion, interstellar travel, cheap energy everywhere, human facilities and the such...

I already have 3-4 marketable products popping in my head just from the fact I have a possibly durable, cheap and transportable energy source...

On another subject, lets take solar sails.

I'm sure I read about them in some 50's scifi books.

They're launching the first one in 1 day, 18 hours, and 35 seven minutes as of now...
http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/

I always thought that books, and sci-fi books moreover, were made to make me think and dream.

And nowaday, wherever I look, I see the sci-fi from the past in everyday use, and some more sci-fi being announced as coming soon (sic)...

Well, at least I'm more ready than the rest if just because of that. And so are you 8)

Re:FTL is the same as time travel

[DavidTC]

There's a series somewhere that has humanity establish trans-temporal wormholes, with the ends hundreds of years apart in almost the same place.

But they don't use them for 'time travel', they put them between solar systems, and fly at slow-than-light (with suspended animation and time dilation shortening the trip) to them, go back in time, and continue their flight, arriving mere days after they left the other planet, after a trip that took hundreds of years.

They have to have a comm blackout and autopilot so they don't transmit messages back in time, and people protecting both the uptime and downtime end. And some of the series revolves around what can happen if the rules aren't followed.

"Star Wars" was highlight of my abusive childhood.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Star Wars" was the highlight of my abusive childhoo. My father brutally belted me frequently, and the rest of the family, a term which I use very loosely, just hid what he did to me.

When I saw "Star Wars", I loved it, and I loved Princess Leia. She was so beautiful. At that time, I had this hope that if I just believed in the values of the Jedi, then I could transcend my abusive childhood. This belief was just like a drug. It created a hallucination that was not real.

Later in life, I simply gave up hope. I stopped believing in Jedis and Christianity. I only wanted to die.

For me, science fiction did serve as an opiate that helped me to live throughout my abusive childhood.

As for now, I make sizeable donations to the local child-abuse-prevention organization. These donations help me to deal with the inner child that my father killed.

The Death of Science Fiction...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...has been caused by these people who think that Science Fiction and a Physics textbook should be much the same thing. It's been an ongoing problem. Years back people like Asimov basically enforced rules in the magazine over which they were influential stating what the laws of physics had to be in anything they published. The same has happened in TV science fiction. It's reached the point where you can have a series like Firefly which has been so denuded of Science Fiction that it doesn't have aliens and the characters use regular firearms.

The whole point of Science Fiction is to be speculative. The question to ask is "what happens if I change the rules?" not "what can I do within these rules?"

Star Trek is a dystopia

[zippthorne]

It's the ultimate extension of a safety obsessed communist culture. Life seems good for the ruling class (Starfleet) but for everyone else? Like the workers in Metropolis, they are hidden from view. Pretty much any form of self-improvement except new-agey personal well-being is frowned upon. No one in the federation travels without papers (in fact, there is not enough industry to support heavy starship building. Let alone interplanetary shipping and travel.) Intra-planetery movement is limited as well. Transporter usage is heavily rationed for civillians. (And why should this be the case in a civilization that has the technology to mine the stars for energy?) Unless you're in the ruling class, life is very prison like. It's a prison with glass walls and satin sheets, but it's a prison nontheless.

ST and the world from Minority report are very similar in this approach. After analyzing the situation, I would not want to live in either world, yet people (and i assume the creators as well) believe these societies to be goals for the future. (everyone has the same car? and like soviet russia, car drives you? what's up with that?)

Re:Who are these 'faithful'???

[jimharris]

The line wasn't meant to make geeks look bad. The point of the post was to examine a new challenge to writing science fiction.

Actually, my last line was edited -- I guess because it used a specific religion as an analogy.

My point was science fiction has become a kind of faith that brings about a sense of well being that generates a positive hope for the future - not unlike various religions I guess I shouldn't name.

If the Mundane SF comments about traditional SF are true, they are in reality an attack on this faith. But more to the point, if what the Mundane SF theorists say about the common tropes of traditional SF is true, and most of the ideas are bogus, why not write fiction projecting other positive futures that are more realistic?

Growing up in the 1960s I thought there was a one-to-one relationship between the love of science fiction and a passion for space exploration. I was obviously wrong. Science fictional themes have become almost universal in fiction, movies, games, comics, etc., but interest in space exploration is so low that most politicians say they consider it non-existant.

I think science fiction did influence the early rocket pioneers, and later space scientists, but all of that is in the past. I'm wondering if the Mundane SF people are not asking writers to write stories that will inspire new generations of engineers to work on practical forms of space exploration.

I've read a lot of science fiction, especially about space travel, and none of it strikes me as realistic. The idea of mankind hopping around the galaxy like we take jets around the world today strikes me as real as the promise of living after death and walking streets of gold in paradise.

I was also asking, in a side-ways fashion, does that love of science fiction inspire a religious like belief in certain concepts because we want them to be true. People passionately want to believe in faster-than-light travel. Why?

Re:Sci fi is real life, pretending to be fake

[mbrother]

The kind of thing you say about Star Trek in the 1960s was even more true in places like the Soviet Union where freedom of speech didn't exist. Someone wanted to comment or criticize was often forced to cover their tracks through the plasuible deniability of science fiction.