i was thinking maybe we’re more optimistic about how fast society can advance than in the past and thats being reflected in our media. like Asimov stuff vs star trek vs cyberpunk, bladerunner, type stuff being set like 50-100 years from now instead of like, the year 3000+. maybe im wrong
People predicted that we’d have moon colonies by now and even be mostly on the way to making Mars ones. Instead, we basically gave up and now pay billionaires to go to space while making fun of and snubbing our favorite icons like William Shatner.
The idea that we even want to go to space is dead, at least in political terms. Irl, we get to be slaves until the earth ends within our lifetimes, making us dream of like socialism or at least less cost gouging in our near future. No wonder we turn to fantasy settings like LOTR and Harry Potter rather than sci-fi - the former is fun but the latter becomes increasingly depressing when you try to mesh futuristic technology with what we know of human morality today.
Tbf, the dream is not dead, it’s just… postponed for awhile while we sort things out on earth.
I know there are some scifi stories that have addressed this exact moral conundrum, like the Elysium movie (supposedly a spriritual successor to Disrict 9). I didn’t watch it from beginning to end, but I recall it bringing up the idea of poor people dealing with what’s left of Earth and the wealthy living in colonies beyond Earth. Something like that.
If you enjoy that, I highly recommend the series Altered Carbon, as it takes those concepts and pumps them up on steroids.
The Rich live literally forever - technically that’s like illegal or whatever but meh they exist above the law, and I mean as in literally above the law, where they exist in sky castles floating above the Earth, those who haven’t migrated to the stars that is.
And occasionally they get bored and do things like hire prostitutes - not for sex, mind you, but to murder them. What thrill could be more enjoyable than something nonconsensual, to someone who has the power to extract consent from more or less anyone at any time?
And if their bodies ever die, they just 3D print a new one and keep going, using the latest backup of their mind drive.
The Poors ofc can afford none of this, so it’s like the Elves in Lord Of The Rings who are immortal, immune to poisons, and have magic, compared to the short lives of humans that bloom for a handful of decades and then are gone. In LOTR btw, I don’t know if you know the secret backstory of that, but elves are “attuned” to the Earth - and so like when they die their souls travel across the sea to the West, spend iirc one century without a body for purification, then are allotted a new body and keep right on going, on the same Earth just on the Western rather than Eastern continent.
Whereas humans were meant to flower and then die, and then go somewhere else that was such a closely guarded secret that even the essentially angel generals were not told, just “the next world”. I feel like that’s an essential tidbit bc otherwise the elves are flat better than humans in every way - and it’s bc they are, at least in terms of being highly optimized for this current world. Humans are so pathetic in comparison only bc they are optimized more for the next one, although nobody (even Gandalf, or even Sauron) knows quite what that means.
Though Sauron was aware of at least this much, hence when he told the humans that the Creator, Eru Ilúvatar, had made them with the express point that they would die quickly, he was lying - not as in positively stating falsehoods but rather in selectively choosing the truths that he wanted them to be aware of. And then by getting them angry, he got them to do as he pleased.
Doesn’t this sound familiar? “BuT bOtH siDeS sAmE tHo”?!
Sci Fi and fantasy has so much to teach us. Like not to be gullible assholes.
And maybe we will go to space? But when that happens it won’t be anything at all like Star Trek, and rather until we get some shit sorted out, it will be more like Spaceship Troopers or Altered Carbon. Or unfortunately quite likely, Star Wars.
I have weird appreciation for lengthy replies like this, so thank you lol.
Okay, first: Altered Carbon. I really did attempt to watch this, but then was turned off by the amount of info dumping in the pilot alone. Thanks for explaining the lore because now I have a reason to give it a second chance. I initially watched for an actor I was interested in, then was intrigued by the thriller aspects, then immediately confused. Will def give it another go.
Oh and the Altered Carbon transhumanist aspects (or any other sci-fi that delves into “resurrection” via soul or consciousness transferring to a new body) always remind me of the Ghost in the Shell anime series. It deals with similar themes, but with a more philosophical and metaphysical approach. Also, I recall that in Ghost, mind transference into a “shell” (body) is not exclusive to the ultra wealthy. And getting cybernetic parts is something that many people can do, regardless of socioeconomic background. The issue is that if you wanted, say, a new leg due to a permanent injury, but you don’t have much cash, you might have to buy a very poor quality leg. If you know the series and I’m misremembering anything, feel free to correct me.
As for LOTR, I do believe you might have given me a spoiler unknowingly. I’m currently halfway through The Silmarillion and Melkor is tearing up the Elven and Human forces. Sauron was barely introduced. But nothing you just told me is anything that I am truly surprised by. I don’t recall if the Elven life cycle was completely explained at the point in the story where I am.
I understand your point about gullibility. There are so many examples of it in The Silmarillion. And I think all stories have some form of lesson in there, even if what can be learned is hard to find or unintended by the creator.
Also, Star Trek is an odd comparison to the others because I always believed Star Trek to be more aspirational rather than predictive of what is to come. As in, let’s look beyond this post-Jim Crow era. Imagine what our world will like if we moved far beyond all the petty racism, misogyny, homophobia and supremacy that plagued our ancestors.
I am not familiar with Starship Troopers, but stories like Altered Carbon and Elysium seem far more plausible in the very near future than any of the other sci fi universes out there. And I’m really only referring to the class inequality aspects, not the mind transfer detail.
Ghost in the Shell is another fantastic one! There are different versions of it and I’m sure how readily accessible various parts are vs. are not likely varies between them. But anyway that does sound totally consistent with its premise that everything that we have now we would still have but it would be just a tiny bit better integrated in terms of the mind+body connection.
If I spoiled something for LOTR then I apologize - fwiw I think it might not be a true “spoiler” bc what I mentioned about humans going on to the next world may never have been resolved in the books? I never read them though - what I said came from Wikipedia, and I only read the porlogue to The Silmarillion. And the Elven life cycle is just “details”, or at least that’s how I feel but if you feel differently and do get to it later then I hope it won’t ruin your enjoyment of that portion of the book:-).
Starship Troopers was just a stupid sci-fi movie, but I think you got where I was going more with the reference to Star Wars. As in there’s still wars, literal slavery, enormous inequality, bureaucratic wastefulness, and in general the Yin/Yang play between aspects like “good” and “evil” where there is nothing that is wholly one or the other.
Case in point: the Jedi were such massive frauds, claiming to value non-attachment, but then propping up the corrupt establishment that ignored the socially dispossed even on the home planet of Coruscant, leaving orphans to rot in the lower levels of the city-planet while the Jedi live in their fabulous sky palace with all the money they could ever need or want. But rather than get on an elevator and go down to visit those kids that exist 10 minutes travel away, the Jedi instead are sent out to whatever planet has the most valuable commodities and engage in whatever activities work towards increasing the overall wealth of The Republic. The real twist there is: it’s not the ignoring of the needs of the poor that makes the Jedi hypocrites, it’s the FAILURE to ignore the “needs” of the wealthy.
Or at least that’s one way to look at it, but perhaps I’m wrong - in any case that whole universe seems designed to show off those kinds of dynamics, where want and poverty are still very much reality, unlike Star Trek where The Federation at least has moved beyond that.
stories like Altered Carbon and Elysium seem far more plausible in the very near future than any of the other sci fi universes out there
Sigh… yeah:-(. It’s like people are giving up on the aspirational stuff that seems too unrealistic to even be of interest, hence e.g. Altered Carbon despite the mind drive actually calls out to us as viewers as being something worth thinking about, bc it’s not only likely but inevitable (IF technology could be developed to make that lifestyle a possibility).
I’m not very well-read so my opinion comes from a select well-known big hit novels/series, but mostly film/tv and also a vague, surface-level knowledge and understanding of themes, settings, etc of some of the important works I haven’t read
IMO a lot of earlier scifi was conceiving of possibilities or coming up with weird ideas and building a world and narrative around them, and sometimes you can’t make a reasonable way for this to occur from where we are in our reality. So you do “a galaxy far far away” or 10,191 or something so far out that earth is a long-forgotten planet, and now you are doing something more similar to high fantasy world building, and can do whatever you want.
Versus a later generation of sci-fi stories that are cautionary tales about things that could become invented, and how they would integrate and affect our current societies over a (relatively) small number of years.
I’m on my phone so I don’t want to completely rewrite what I just wrote, but I do want to clarify/correct that this is not actually “earlier” vs “later” - there are examples of both all throughout scifi history - but perhaps what has entered the mainstream via adaptations, smash hits, cult classic, etc. pathways. Basically it depends if the author is writing a cautionary tale or metaphor, developing a conceptual & epic universe, telling an allegorical story, or whatever else - and then oftentimes popculture dictates which ones people become familiar with.
Anyway it’s super early and as I said I’m on my phone, so I hope these thoughts are coherent and at least vaguely interesting to you. I found your question thought provoking and wanted to respond. Cheers
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I don’t know, 40K is pretty far in the future.
The good stuff happens pretty quick though, as seen in the documentary Event Horizon.
hits blunt
No, I don’t think you’re wrong at all. Another semi-recent game that took a perhaps too optimistic view of how quickly our tech would advance was Detroit: Become Human. It came out back in 2018. I recall how the fandom (myself included) was kinda weirded out about the setting of that game, which was only 2038. So within a roughly 20 year time gap, the game presumes that our current tech in then 2018 would advance so far and fast by just 2038.
It’d only be realistic if the y2038 bug temporarily took out all the androids because they’re running Debian 10 or something.
LMAO 😂 okay, but does it count if they’re running a distro that’s more bleeding edge?
I think it depends on the content you expose yourself to, we did get Dune, Foundation, and a bunch of disappointing Star Wars, but yeah, otherwise it does feel like some sci fi lately has had settings or plots that didn’t feel foreign in terms of era
In Hindu mythology I guess the current age ends in 428,899 CE so that’s another data point for a longer speculative future from the distant past
