|
|
|
|
|
|
by mindcrime
5132 days ago
|
|
|
Today, the sci-fi novels of the sixties feel like artifacts from a distant age. “One way you can describe the collapse of the idea of the future is the collapse of science fiction,” Thiel said. “Now it’s either about technology that doesn’t work or about technology that’s used in bad ways. The anthology of the top twenty-five sci-fi stories in 1970 was, like, ‘Me and my friend the robot went for a walk on the moon,’ and in 2008 it was, like, ‘The galaxy is run by a fundamentalist Islamic confederacy, and there are people who are hunting planets and killing them for fun.’" You know, I think he's on to something there. Modern sci-fi really doesn't seem to have a whole lot left to say about potential advances in technology, and the tone does seem to have shifted away from the optimism of yesteryear. The best new scifi I've read lately was a post-apocalyptic zombie story trilogy, for crying out loud. |
|
|
His comment resonated with me as well. However I think there's a libertarian explanation for the decline of Utopian Sci-Fi. It existed out of a general optimism about problems too large for a ragtag group of individualists to solve. Space travel, etc., is the realm of big governments, and exploration of the universe is the stuff of political hegemony.
The real world has gone way beyond that to a place where Peter Thiel is wealthy enough to fund his own space explorations. The problem for Sci-fi is that market based approaches to solving problems are a lot less glamourous than those undertaken by the state. There is also (quite often) far less drama, a simple profit motive, and rather boring incremental progress.
State actions are always impossible to disconnect from the propaganda story accompanying them. Scientific advancement, often undertaken by governments solely for the purpose of warmaking, has been the locus of much propaganda, and it wasn't until the 50s were over that the nation started to get a clue.
That said I hope someone writes a story that proves me wrong.