Good article. One of the most aggravating things for me personally is people who look at art as political propaganda FIRST and everything else second. From the old Moral Majority of the Right to the Social Justice Warriors of the Left, these people are nothing but scolds.
It seems to me the biggest flaw in Harper's argument is that he assumes sci-fi is completely ineffective in inspiring positive change (like fixing climate change) while simultaneously assuming it is 100% effective in inspiring negative change.
I agree there's no concrete evidence that climate fiction has any real positive impact on the world. It might, but there's no way to know. But how does he then go on to claim as accepted fact that the atom bomb was directly inspired by sci-fi? If you believe the latter, then you have to at least seriously consider the former. Anything else is just blatant cherry-picking.
Having a literature professor talk about capitalism is about as useful as asking a bond trader his views on 19th century French novels. I always respect people willing to spread their wings as long as they keep their thoughts on their hobbies to themselves. They are not worth my time unless I am very, very good friends with them. Noah's views on science fiction are an exception.
The criticisms shown just seem to me to be another example of leftists venting their spleen against the world for failing to conform to their ludicrous theories. No, the ‘proletariat’ was not about to rise up and destroy all existing social relations. No, socialising property did not bring about greater human welfare. Yes, you were wrong about pretty much everything you fought for. When you are operating from a fundamentally fallacious viewpoint, you tend to get angry about how things actually play out. Turns about building a utopia on the page is harder than reality.
He seems way too online. There is a certain tone where you sense you could have a deep nuanced conversation with him but online it’s just ill informed ranting and regurgitated talking points.
Two points. First, my big problem with Sci-Fi is the generally mediocre to poor quality of the prose. Can’t we have a Marc Helprin, Michael Charon or Ruth Ozeki?
Second, I can’t understand the disconnect between a world that has improved by almost ever measure as technology has advanced and the current attitudes of the Doomer generation. When I was a kid, if you wanted to buy some candy cigarettes, you just collected cans and bottles that were discarded all over the ground while breathing the lead we were intentionally burning into the air. Health and life expectancy are up, crime and war are down. The Weather Underground isn’t blowing up buildings on a daily basis, women can have credit cards and checking accounts and black people can vote without the cops beating them. But no one wants to bring children into today’s world.
Much of the dislike of sci-fi and techno-optimism just comes down to leftist anger at progress not being led and controlled by diversity commissars that can micromanage the future of humanity. It's fundamentally about power, and they correctly recognise that non-leftist tech billionaires are not part of their tribe and that technological innovation can make their own nonsensical bugaboos obsolete, leaving them nothing but seething resentment at the more successful which was really their primary motivation to begin with.
I suspect Harper is (subconsciously) inflating the importance of his own field. The idea that technologies are only discovered because of the motive force of Literature in human history is flattering to a social constructivist or humanities sensibility, but I don't think it's true.
To take one example: the idea that sci-fi "inspired the creation" of the atomic bomb is pretty speculative! Szilard was a big fan of HG Wells, yes. That's a very thin reed on which to hang the causal claim that the bomb *wouldn't have happened otherwise*, which is what you need to claim to blame sci-fi for it. I think physicists are smart enough to realize the use of a nuclear chain reaction for explosives, even if it might have taken a bit longer.
I teach 1984 and Brave New World to my high school students every other year. Invented sci-fi universes often a mask commentary about our own. Similarly, BNW's invented future is really commentary about our present. Every year one of my students comments that our modern world seems to have taken Huxley's cautionary tale as an instruction manual though.
The critique (and maybe the counter-critique) miss the point. It's not technology per se, but the slow unraveling of institutions (political, cultural, socioeconomic) that were premised on an older set of technologies. Here's a broad generalization: the last 200-300 years saw the buildup of institutions architected around Enlightenment-era thought and industrialization. A lot of these institutions are losing relevance, slowly, thanks to technology change, and nobody has any clear answers as to what comes next (like, in the next 100 years). So a lot of folks default to the fear setting. Sci-fi is kind of neutral: it can play to those fears, or posit what should come next.
Blaming sci Fi for the existence of science and speculation about science is a bit like blaming pornography for the existence of sex. Anyway the standard Evil Emperor plot involves our heroes toppling Zurg or the Empire or the Machines and making the galaxy safe for the little guy, and I don't see how a Zurg-promoting plot would work.
As for AI, the sources are unanimously cautionary tales saying DO NOT CREATE AI. See Frankenstein, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Terminator, 2001, Blade Runner. Now you can claim that the young Musk looked at Frankenstein and Tyrell and thought I want to be like him, but that's not the intention of the text.
A healthy society is one that doesn’t allow obscene wealth or oligarchs to. Bezos and Musk treat employees like bags of garbage. Both men are filled with unwarranted hubris. The amount of resources that they control is an abomination.
I like Stross' novels quite a bit, but I was definitely disappointed by that article. To give one example, Stephenson makes fun of seasteading in Snow Crash as part of an extended parody of Scientology. It's not science fiction; the real Sea Org actually started that way in the 60s. Overall, a pretty shallow and unabashedly political analysis of a topic that deserves better.
Tech positive sci-fi is particularly valuable because it helps us overcome a common cognitive bias that tends to obstruct progress: the things we might lose as a result of change are very salient to us while the novel benefits are hard to envision. This is why virtually every new technology from the written word, to the printing press, to factory automation has been met with great trepidation.
Science fiction helps us imagine those not yet existent benefits of technology. I think this critic could do with a bit more of that positive imagination.
Good article. One of the most aggravating things for me personally is people who look at art as political propaganda FIRST and everything else second. From the old Moral Majority of the Right to the Social Justice Warriors of the Left, these people are nothing but scolds.
It seems to me the biggest flaw in Harper's argument is that he assumes sci-fi is completely ineffective in inspiring positive change (like fixing climate change) while simultaneously assuming it is 100% effective in inspiring negative change.
I agree there's no concrete evidence that climate fiction has any real positive impact on the world. It might, but there's no way to know. But how does he then go on to claim as accepted fact that the atom bomb was directly inspired by sci-fi? If you believe the latter, then you have to at least seriously consider the former. Anything else is just blatant cherry-picking.
Having a literature professor talk about capitalism is about as useful as asking a bond trader his views on 19th century French novels. I always respect people willing to spread their wings as long as they keep their thoughts on their hobbies to themselves. They are not worth my time unless I am very, very good friends with them. Noah's views on science fiction are an exception.
The criticisms shown just seem to me to be another example of leftists venting their spleen against the world for failing to conform to their ludicrous theories. No, the ‘proletariat’ was not about to rise up and destroy all existing social relations. No, socialising property did not bring about greater human welfare. Yes, you were wrong about pretty much everything you fought for. When you are operating from a fundamentally fallacious viewpoint, you tend to get angry about how things actually play out. Turns about building a utopia on the page is harder than reality.
He seems way too online. There is a certain tone where you sense you could have a deep nuanced conversation with him but online it’s just ill informed ranting and regurgitated talking points.
Two points. First, my big problem with Sci-Fi is the generally mediocre to poor quality of the prose. Can’t we have a Marc Helprin, Michael Charon or Ruth Ozeki?
Second, I can’t understand the disconnect between a world that has improved by almost ever measure as technology has advanced and the current attitudes of the Doomer generation. When I was a kid, if you wanted to buy some candy cigarettes, you just collected cans and bottles that were discarded all over the ground while breathing the lead we were intentionally burning into the air. Health and life expectancy are up, crime and war are down. The Weather Underground isn’t blowing up buildings on a daily basis, women can have credit cards and checking accounts and black people can vote without the cops beating them. But no one wants to bring children into today’s world.
Maybe we need more history than Sci-Fi.
Much of the dislike of sci-fi and techno-optimism just comes down to leftist anger at progress not being led and controlled by diversity commissars that can micromanage the future of humanity. It's fundamentally about power, and they correctly recognise that non-leftist tech billionaires are not part of their tribe and that technological innovation can make their own nonsensical bugaboos obsolete, leaving them nothing but seething resentment at the more successful which was really their primary motivation to begin with.
I suspect Harper is (subconsciously) inflating the importance of his own field. The idea that technologies are only discovered because of the motive force of Literature in human history is flattering to a social constructivist or humanities sensibility, but I don't think it's true.
To take one example: the idea that sci-fi "inspired the creation" of the atomic bomb is pretty speculative! Szilard was a big fan of HG Wells, yes. That's a very thin reed on which to hang the causal claim that the bomb *wouldn't have happened otherwise*, which is what you need to claim to blame sci-fi for it. I think physicists are smart enough to realize the use of a nuclear chain reaction for explosives, even if it might have taken a bit longer.
I teach 1984 and Brave New World to my high school students every other year. Invented sci-fi universes often a mask commentary about our own. Similarly, BNW's invented future is really commentary about our present. Every year one of my students comments that our modern world seems to have taken Huxley's cautionary tale as an instruction manual though.
The critique (and maybe the counter-critique) miss the point. It's not technology per se, but the slow unraveling of institutions (political, cultural, socioeconomic) that were premised on an older set of technologies. Here's a broad generalization: the last 200-300 years saw the buildup of institutions architected around Enlightenment-era thought and industrialization. A lot of these institutions are losing relevance, slowly, thanks to technology change, and nobody has any clear answers as to what comes next (like, in the next 100 years). So a lot of folks default to the fear setting. Sci-fi is kind of neutral: it can play to those fears, or posit what should come next.
Blaming sci Fi for the existence of science and speculation about science is a bit like blaming pornography for the existence of sex. Anyway the standard Evil Emperor plot involves our heroes toppling Zurg or the Empire or the Machines and making the galaxy safe for the little guy, and I don't see how a Zurg-promoting plot would work.
As for AI, the sources are unanimously cautionary tales saying DO NOT CREATE AI. See Frankenstein, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Terminator, 2001, Blade Runner. Now you can claim that the young Musk looked at Frankenstein and Tyrell and thought I want to be like him, but that's not the intention of the text.
A healthy society is one that doesn’t allow obscene wealth or oligarchs to. Bezos and Musk treat employees like bags of garbage. Both men are filled with unwarranted hubris. The amount of resources that they control is an abomination.
I like Stross' novels quite a bit, but I was definitely disappointed by that article. To give one example, Stephenson makes fun of seasteading in Snow Crash as part of an extended parody of Scientology. It's not science fiction; the real Sea Org actually started that way in the 60s. Overall, a pretty shallow and unabashedly political analysis of a topic that deserves better.
Happy Friday Everyone
Hope someone smiles with this memory.
Get Smart. 1965
Agent 86 talking into his shoe phone.
Tech positive sci-fi is particularly valuable because it helps us overcome a common cognitive bias that tends to obstruct progress: the things we might lose as a result of change are very salient to us while the novel benefits are hard to envision. This is why virtually every new technology from the written word, to the printing press, to factory automation has been met with great trepidation.
Science fiction helps us imagine those not yet existent benefits of technology. I think this critic could do with a bit more of that positive imagination.
What about Heinlein? He provided instructions for building waterbeds and someone unleashed them on the world.