Sci Fidelity 2
So, picking up on where I'd posted earlier about SF, I feel like any space opera or equivalent technofantasy is just that -- wishful thinking that humanity's even going to survive to colonize other planets.
Sure, THE EXPANSE is fun, and the fandoms of STAR TREK and STAR WARS endure for a reason -- they're SF fantasies.
Right now, in terms of us as a species, we're far closer to the grim post-apocalyptic worlds of THE ROAD WARRIOR or even WATERWORLD than we are to anything that gets us off the planet.
Which speaks to the real problems we face as a species, and why SF is headbutting into a wall of human limitation. It's not that we can't solve problems needed to advance as a species; so much as the lift is likely more than most are willing to take in the time we have before extinction wipes us out.
SF carries with it a hope for human progress, or some sort of triumph of the human spirit in the face of the forces that are grinding it down. However, much of that requires overlooking so much in human nature that keeps us captive to the planet.
I wrote a SF novel that'll be coming out in '24 that actually tackles this -- the need for progress coupled with humanity's stubborn resistance to it. It's intended to show that there's a way we need to go as a species, along with a despair that we'll even get there. It manages to be both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time.
In my collection of SF short stories (SINGULARITIES), I devoted a lot of time to social science fiction, which I think is central to where SF needs to be concentrating if we're hoping to not just wallow in technofantasy.
That's where I see SF as still having a critical role as a literary form. We need to wean ourselves of the enticements of technofantasy and really explore what's wrong with the human condition, and why. Maybe there is no answer for it, which is why SF is hitting that wall.
Barring the arrival of aliens and/or a renaissance in human ethics leading to a wave of human rights improvements, we just may be doomed as a species. Not something people want to think about, I'm sure.
But it's something we need to think about if we're going to progress. Too much SF softpedals the problems we face today as a way of vaulting to some hypothetical future (either utopian or dystopian, it hardly matters).
Sure, THE EXPANSE is fun, and the fandoms of STAR TREK and STAR WARS endure for a reason -- they're SF fantasies.
Right now, in terms of us as a species, we're far closer to the grim post-apocalyptic worlds of THE ROAD WARRIOR or even WATERWORLD than we are to anything that gets us off the planet.
Which speaks to the real problems we face as a species, and why SF is headbutting into a wall of human limitation. It's not that we can't solve problems needed to advance as a species; so much as the lift is likely more than most are willing to take in the time we have before extinction wipes us out.
SF carries with it a hope for human progress, or some sort of triumph of the human spirit in the face of the forces that are grinding it down. However, much of that requires overlooking so much in human nature that keeps us captive to the planet.
I wrote a SF novel that'll be coming out in '24 that actually tackles this -- the need for progress coupled with humanity's stubborn resistance to it. It's intended to show that there's a way we need to go as a species, along with a despair that we'll even get there. It manages to be both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time.
In my collection of SF short stories (SINGULARITIES), I devoted a lot of time to social science fiction, which I think is central to where SF needs to be concentrating if we're hoping to not just wallow in technofantasy.
That's where I see SF as still having a critical role as a literary form. We need to wean ourselves of the enticements of technofantasy and really explore what's wrong with the human condition, and why. Maybe there is no answer for it, which is why SF is hitting that wall.
Barring the arrival of aliens and/or a renaissance in human ethics leading to a wave of human rights improvements, we just may be doomed as a species. Not something people want to think about, I'm sure.
But it's something we need to think about if we're going to progress. Too much SF softpedals the problems we face today as a way of vaulting to some hypothetical future (either utopian or dystopian, it hardly matters).
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