Dystopias are reactionary!

[Travis B.]

maybe it's a weird pet peeve of mine but... isn't it weird we speak about space colonization? like, there aren't brown people on the moon we can enslave or exterminate and take away their land. we can't exterminate the martians and steal their crops, cause there's no martians *or* martian crops.

In Réunion there was nobody living permanently until a few Malagasy and French people came in 1663. It's still called colonisation.

I think we must make a distinction between 'colonization' and 'colonialism' -- in space there would be colonization but there would be no colonialism in the conventional steal-land-from-other-people sense.

[WeepingElf]

maybe it's a weird pet peeve of mine but... isn't it weird we speak about space colonization? like, there aren't brown people on the moon we can enslave or exterminate and take away their land. we can't exterminate the martians and steal their crops, cause there's no martians *or* martian crops.

In Réunion there was nobody living permanently until a few Malagasy and French people came in 1663. It's still called colonisation.

I think we must make a distinction between 'colonization' and 'colonialism' -- in space there would be colonization but there would be no colonialism in the conventional steal-land-from-other-people sense.

Yes. Space colonization is not colonialism because it doesn't involve stealing land from indigenous people - just claiming land previously owned by nobody.

[alice]

If you have colonization, can you also have semi-colonization?

(runs and hides)

[Raphael]

Hm. There are a number of historically colonized places that ended up with a cultural mix of the colonizers' and colonized people's cultures. Much of Latin America comes to mind, much of Francophone Africa, and some of those parts of the former British Empire that managed it to avoid ending up mostly white. But I'd say what happened in those places was still a variant of "regular" colonization, not semi-colonization.

[Travis B.]

Hm. There are a number of historically colonized places that ended up with a cultural mix of the colonizers' and colonized people's cultures. Much of Latin America comes to mind, much of Francophone Africa, and some of those parts of the former British Empire that managed it to avoid ending up mostly white. But I'd say what happened in those places was still a variant of "regular" colonization, not semi-colonization.

The biggest cases where the colonizers (and in many cases their imported slaves) practically completely displaced the native populations are much of North America, the Caribbean, Australia, and Siberia. In other cases there was far less complete displacement of the native populations.

[Raphael]

Hm. There are a number of historically colonized places that ended up with a cultural mix of the colonizers' and colonized people's cultures. Much of Latin America comes to mind, much of Francophone Africa, and some of those parts of the former British Empire that managed it to avoid ending up mostly white. But I'd say what happened in those places was still a variant of "regular" colonization, not semi-colonization.

The biggest cases where the colonizers (and in many cases their imported slaves) practically completely displaced the native populations are much of North America, the Caribbean, Australia, and Siberia. In other cases there was far less complete displacement of the native populations.

I have my disagreements with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, but I think they might be on to something when they argue that the important factor was whether there were pre-existing indigenous power structures which the colonizers could coopt in order to make the colonized serve their interests, or not.

[Travis B.]

Hm. There are a number of historically colonized places that ended up with a cultural mix of the colonizers' and colonized people's cultures. Much of Latin America comes to mind, much of Francophone Africa, and some of those parts of the former British Empire that managed it to avoid ending up mostly white. But I'd say what happened in those places was still a variant of "regular" colonization, not semi-colonization.

The biggest cases where the colonizers (and in many cases their imported slaves) practically completely displaced the native populations are much of North America, the Caribbean, Australia, and Siberia. In other cases there was far less complete displacement of the native populations.

I have my disagreements with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, but I think they might be on to something when they argue that the important factor was whether there were pre-existing indigenous power structures which the colonizers could coopt in order to make the colonized serve their interests, or not.

One other factor is how much of an impact disease had -- it had a bigger impact in North America, the Caribbean, and Australia than elsewhere (and while it had a big impact in Mesoamerica and South America, in parts thereof the existing population was dense enough that there were enough surviving people, while in parts where the existing populations were largely wiped out, such as Argentina, the preexisting populations were less dense to begin with).

[rotting bones]

I have suggested that people settle in Antarctica. They don't want to because they don't want the ice sheets to melt even faster. The sea floor is even more dangerous because of the high pressure.

[linguistcat]

I have suggested that people settle in Antarctica. They don't want to because they don't want the ice sheets to melt even faster. The sea floor is even more dangerous because of the high pressure.

Also, I'm personally sad that no one suggests colonizing Venus seriously even though there is actually a layer in the atmosphere that is Earth pressure and a comfortable temperature. It even has a magnetic field, if a weak one, so that's already more protection against radiation than Mars or the moon. And floating balloon colonies are objectively really awesome.

I don't really care that we colonize Mars (and by we I mean humans in the next 200-500ish years, not specifically people living currently), but we should WORK TOWARD getting human settlements on other worlds in this generation.

[WeepingElf]

I have suggested that people settle in Antarctica. They don't want to because they don't want the ice sheets to melt even faster. The sea floor is even more dangerous because of the high pressure.

Also, I'm personally sad that no one suggests colonizing Venus seriously even though there is actually a layer in the atmosphere that is Earth pressure and a comfortable temperature. It even has a magnetic field, if a weak one, so that's already more protection against radiation than Mars or the moon. And floating balloon colonies are objectively really awesome.

It has been proposed. Indeed, the atmospheric layer you mention is in many ways the best "real estate" in the Solar System beyond Earth - you just need some big, acid-proof (because there is a lot of sulfuric acid in the atmosphere) balloons. No worry about extreme pressures and temperatures, or the wrong level of gravity.

[rotting bones]

As for the idea of terraforming the earth, that is a questionable endeavor. Here, we have people in the way, both physically and politically.

[rotting bones]

IIRC melting the polar caps is not enough CO2 to heat up Mars. Terraforming the whole planet will probably require some form of asteroid bombardment.

[rotting bones]

Also, I'm personally sad that no one suggests colonizing Venus seriously even though there is actually a layer in the atmosphere that is Earth pressure and a comfortable temperature. It even has a magnetic field, if a weak one, so that's already more protection against radiation than Mars or the moon. And floating balloon colonies are objectively really awesome.

I don't really care that we colonize Mars (and by we I mean humans in the next 200-500ish years, not specifically people living currently), but we should WORK TOWARD getting human settlements on other worlds in this generation.

Having to maintain an atmospheric altitude forever seems like a recipe for disaster.

[WeepingElf]

Also, I'm personally sad that no one suggests colonizing Venus seriously even though there is actually a layer in the atmosphere that is Earth pressure and a comfortable temperature. It even has a magnetic field, if a weak one, so that's already more protection against radiation than Mars or the moon. And floating balloon colonies are objectively really awesome.

I don't really care that we colonize Mars (and by we I mean humans in the next 200-500ish years, not specifically people living currently), but we should WORK TOWARD getting human settlements on other worlds in this generation.

Having to maintain an atmospheric altitude forever seems like a recipe for disaster.

Any colony in a hostile environment is a recipe for disaster. I still consider space colonization vastly overrated, as such colonies are not likely to be self-sufficient. It may be possible to maintain a research outpost off Earth, but how do you run farms in order to feed the people? And terraforming probably doesn't work, either - when a planet is hostile that has reasons not easily changed, such as the size of the planet or its distance from the Sun.

And we are off on a tangent here, the topic of discussion here is how dystopias have a reactionary effect (even if not intended by the authors), and how we can envision a world where dystopia is averted by tackling the current crisis - and space colonization does nothing for that. There is no Planet B! We must solve our problems here and now, not on some other planet centuries in the future. (And if we fail to do so, space colonization will be even more illusionary than it currently is.)

[rotting bones]

Maybe "terraforming" Venus will be relatively easy: "Just" create extremely tall mountains.

---

Both utopias and dystopias are caricatures of one's life experiences, usually to make a point. These are just styles, and any style can be co-opted by regressive politics. For example, if all our fiction were utopian, regressives could paint various minorities, women, environmentalists, etc, as preventing us from achieving these utopias.

People have written a lot of utopias. I think dystopias gripped the public imagination more by creating a sense of urgency.

Usually, literary types with high standards want to see explorations of real human relationships in fiction. They tend to have a lower opinion of caricatures and genre fiction.

Personally, I resonate with any fiction that makes me think deeply about the world.

What you have to understand about regressives is that because some of them can add 2 and 2 more quickly than average, they think their uninformed delusions of genetic groups or similar ideologies cooperating reflect the true nature of reality. If you want to get through to them, you have to make them stop believing in themselves. I think the best fiction for that is stuff that's surreal but rigorously scientific: progressive hard science fiction. Whether these are utopian or dystopian is less important. For example, I think Greg Egan's Orthogonal trilogy is some of the best fiction ever written.

[Torco]

Mind you the English (and the Americans) engaged in plenty of slavery; they just happened to import their slaves mostly (but mind you in cases they did keep native populations of places like parts of India in conditions that could be considered unfree labor). Conversely, Spanish colonization of the Caribbean certainly was very genocidal. As for Russian colonial expansion, it definitely had very genocidal aspects to it, considering what the Russians did to the native populations of Siberia and the Caucasus.

All true, they both did both, but outcomes probably inform us of what happened: countries colonized by the spanish have big chunks of their populations made up of mestizos, whereas there ended up being much less mestizaje north of mexico: i know it's complicated cause a lof of the southern us used to be mexico, but i think the pattern is quite clear. where anglos colonized they seem to have mostly killed and displaced, engaging in a lot of segregation, whereas where iberians colonized there are now populations mostly descended from both enslaved people groups and their enslavers. they seem to have mostly enslaved and interbred.

perhaps by this metric russians were more like anglos, settlers living segregated from, and not alongside with, native populations (?)
i must say, now that i think about it, I really know very little about russia.

[Torco]

maybe it's a weird pet peeve of mine but... isn't it weird we speak about space colonization? like, there aren't brown people on the moon we can enslave or exterminate and take away their land. we can't exterminate the martians and steal their crops, cause there's no martians *or* martian crops.

In Réunion there was nobody living permanently until a few Malagasy and French people came in 1663. It's still called colonisation.

mmmm, true, and i think even the ancient greeks called faraway commercial outposts colonies, no ?
.. apparently no, they used a different word: it was romans that came up with colonia, and it means a settlement of roman citizens in conquered territory there to presumably enforce roman supremacy... oh, look, ancient mediterranean tradition!

[Travis B.]

Mind you the English (and the Americans) engaged in plenty of slavery; they just happened to import their slaves mostly (but mind you in cases they did keep native populations of places like parts of India in conditions that could be considered unfree labor). Conversely, Spanish colonization of the Caribbean certainly was very genocidal. As for Russian colonial expansion, it definitely had very genocidal aspects to it, considering what the Russians did to the native populations of Siberia and the Caucasus.

All true, they both did both, but outcomes probably inform us of what happened: countries colonized by the spanish have big chunks of their populations made up of mestizos, whereas there ended up being much less mestizaje north of mexico: i know it's complicated cause a lof of the southern us used to be mexico, but i think the pattern is quite clear. where anglos colonized they seem to have mostly killed and displaced, engaging in a lot of segregation, whereas where iberians colonized there are now populations mostly descended from both enslaved people groups and their enslavers. they seem to have mostly enslaved and interbred.

perhaps by this metric russians were more like anglos, settlers living segregated from, and not alongside with, native populations (?)
i must say, now that i think about it, I really know very little about russia.

Consider the Caribbean, though, where the Spanish thoroughly wiped out the native population (British and French colonization of the Caribbean came later).

[Torco]

the spanish exterminated *some* of the native groups of the caribbean (this is a broad and vague term), but certainly not all. I've literally hung out with native caribean people, like born in a traditional village in some jungle or other, spoke arawak or something, village ran by the elders, the whole shtick.

[zompist]

countries colonized by the spanish have big chunks of their populations made up of mestizos, whereas there ended up being much less mestizaje north of mexico: i know it's complicated cause a lof of the southern us used to be mexico, but i think the pattern is quite clear. where anglos colonized they seem to have mostly killed and displaced, engaging in a lot of segregation, whereas where iberians colonized there are now populations mostly descended from both enslaved people groups and their enslavers. they seem to have mostly enslaved and interbred.

It's not a matter of nationalities, but of density.

The Spanish
-- exterminated like mofos in the Caribbean and in Patagonia
-- took over large dense native empires in Mexico and Peru

The English
-- exterminated like mofos in the North America
-- took over large dense native kingdoms in India and Africa

In both cases with an asterisk on "exterminated"; many natives survived the guns and germs.