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by kaycebasques 1611 days ago
> William Gibson writing about a better future? That's not what I saw in his books

Neuromancer definitely wasn't optimistic, but the description of the software agents (can't remember the terms Gibson used) were so cool that I would interpret it as a kind of inspiration (the cousin of optimism). I'm talking about how the main character would be making his way through cyberspace and he would see the other programs, people, etc. as 3D forms.

I agree that this thesis around "SF needs to be usefully optimistic" is a bizarre presumption.
3 comments
at_a_remove 1611 days ago
It is more than bizarre, it is a little scary.

Looking through the various dystopian fics, films, whatever, they all started as someone's utopia. Somebody out there thought this was a great idea. And like most great ideas you will have disagreement, which must be dealt with, because it's a great idea. Can't have the nay-saying. And the transformation to dystopia begins.

Just as an example from the article, a lot of the policy and planning around the pandemic assumed almost total compliance. This is not a reasonable assumption.

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octopoc 1611 days ago
> Looking through the various dystopian fics, films, whatever, they all started as someone's utopia.

Exactly! This is always what happens when people have more loyalty to an ideology than to humans.

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pbourke 1611 days ago
“High technology within broken human systems” is how I’d describe much “cyberpunk” writing. Reading tons of it as a younger person has made the present feel eerily familiar.

The most unrealistic part of most science fiction for me are not the warp drives and teleporters, but the human civilization that has found its way to post-scarcity.

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beaconstudios 1611 days ago
the essence of cyberpunk is about exactly where techno-libertarianism will lead. It was so subversive because it was at its core a critique of capitalism, pointed directly at golden age scifi.
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smnrchrds 1611 days ago
Relevant comic: https://www.butajape.com/comic/sci-fi-predictions/

Make sure you read the description too.

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kaycebasques 1611 days ago
There are some interesting details in the last illustration. Seems like some hints around how the author thinks the real future will actually suck:

* Water only being available in bottles, at a very high price

* Cyborg tech

* Militarized Boston Dynamics robots

* Destroyed moon...?

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