Zompist Bboard Again

alice wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 2:15 pm Don't forget: science-fiction is, despite its pretensions, all about the world now, often projected into the future, but still about today's issues and concerns.

Yes. But why always project what happens when we fail to tackle them? Why not show how we can succeed?

-snip-

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 1:01 pm Related to that, I don't really don't like the way many progressive science fiction fans these days seem to insist that every utopia needs to be torn down and exposed as having really been a dystopia all along. I understand that tearing down society's illusions has long been an important part of left-wing politics, but if you tear down every idea of a future better than the present, you'll eventually arrive at the idea that the world always has to be as bad as it is now.

Pondering that, I wonder if its because of / related to the idea that, while we don't know how a utopia will work, we can envision how a dystopia could work - and we can, as readers, buy the idea that a dystopia might pass itself off as a utopia...particularly to a protagonist who previously to the story, didn't realize there was any downside to their blessed life.

Once came across a statement that, the reason why the visit to God's part of Heaven (a utopia) is so short in Dante's work, is that nothing happens there - nothing can happen...other than looking around like the tourist his narrator is.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 1:32 pm When I posted my vision of a science fiction that tells how our problems can be solved or at least mitigated in a science fiction fan forum some years ago, several other users replied that such stories exist - and mentioned as examples stories of the "false paradise" type you mention. They had understood nothing.

Maybe they thought that the solutions were other problems - be they "the real problem" or "the issue you didn't address" as they're usually phrased. (or that the solutions hid a new problem -- like how in one TOS episode of Star Trek, all the wants and conflict and "spock can't date her" were no longer concerns...and it turned out the plants were hungry for, as the Orcs call it, "for manflesh."

keenir wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 3:31 pm Once came across a statement that, the reason why the visit to God's part of Heaven (a utopia) is so short in Dante's work, is that nothing happens there - nothing can happen...other than looking around like the tourist his narrator is.

This reminds me of the famous essay, usually attributed to George Orwell but we don't know for sure because it was initially published under a different name, Can Socialists Be Happy?, about the problems with imagining a permanent state of happiness:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221212202 ... -be-happy/

All efforts to describe permanent happiness, on the other hand, have been failures. Utopias (incidentally the coined word Utopia doesn’t mean ‘a good place’, it means merely a ‘non-existent place’) have been common in literature of the past three or four hundred years but the ‘favourable’ ones are invariably unappetising, and usually lacking in vitality as well.

[...]

Attempts at describing a definitely other-worldly happiness have been no more successful. Heaven is as great a flop as Utopia though Hell occupies a respectable place in literature, and has often been described most minutely and convincingly.

[...]

Many a revivalist minister, many a Jesuit priest (see, for instance, the terrific sermon in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist) has frightened his congregation almost out of their skins with his word-pictures of Hell. But as soon as it comes to Heaven, there is a prompt falling-back on words like ‘ecstasy’ and ‘bliss’, with little attempt to say what they consist in.

[...]

It would seem that human beings are not able to describe, nor perhaps to imagine, happiness except in terms of contrast. That is why the conception of Heaven or Utopia varies from age to age. In pre-industrial society Heaven was described as a place of endless rest, and as being paved with gold, because the experience of the average human being was overwork and poverty.

[...]

Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache.

I believe it's more than just science fiction. I don't know how you feel about that, but it feels we're in the middle of a huge anxiety epidemic. Attitudes about technology aren't quite the same as they used to.

So this is naturally reflected in art. On top of that, science fiction is a genre that lends itself to grim prediction.

As I recall, all classic SF assumed at least widespread famine and one nuclear war or two before the tech utopia.

There are elegant answers to the problem of utopia. Iain M. Banks comes to mind of course (if you haven't read his books, the Culture is an extremely advanced communist utopias; but Culture stories are always set on less-developed planets, or among the most neurotic Culture citizens). Lois McMaster Bujold sort of settled on the same solution (most of her SF works involve military dictatorship shenanigans, but it's heavily implied most of the universe is a lot more comfortable)

I have read two Culture novels and an essay by Banks in which he explains how the Culture works, so I know what you are talking about - and I like it. However, it doesn't really address the problems of our time and how we can overcome them in the foreseeable future. And of course, a perfect world would be boring. But does that really mean that before things turn out good there has to be a dark age before that? Even Star Trek has a future dark age. Also, it follows a deus ex machina approach: friendly aliens (the Vulcans) show up and help our grandchildren get out of the dark age and become enlightened citizens of a bright future (at least, that's how I understood Star Trek: First Contact). We can't hope for such help; we have to work it out all by ourselves, or we are going to die. And then, there are all those zombie apocalypses and other scenarios where civilization is brought down by problems we don't really have.

Another problem with utopia is that people disagree considerably on what constitutes an ideal society or life. Consider the difference in moral values between an evangelical Christian conservative and a neopagan anarchist. They would disagree on pretty much everything about how society ought to function and what values an ideal world would embody. Many believe that the ideal society would maximize pleasure and minimize pain while others feel that moral virtue or personal freedom or even aesthetic beauty are more important. For that matter, many people including myself would regard an oligarchy of godlike supercomputers as downright dystopian, regardless of how much they guild our cages.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 7:14 am I believe it's more than just science fiction. I don't know how you feel about that, but it feels we're in the middle of a huge anxiety epidemic.

Yes, that is what Jean Twenge noticed when she compared the generation Z to previous generations at the same age:

With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person – perhaps why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

https://www.jeantwenge.com/igen-book-by-dr-jean-twenge/

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 10:26 am For that matter, many people including myself would regard an oligarchy of godlike supercomputers as downright dystopian, regardless of how much they guild our cages.

Are you thinking of the Culture? If so, I tend to agree... Iain M. Banks has a way of selling the idea, with very solid writing and nice prose, but the Minds are pretty disturbing when you stop and think about it!

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 10:39 am Yes, that is what Jean Twenge noticed when she compared the generation Z to previous generations at the same age:

That's probably true, but I'm not sure the problem is generational... People my age certainly come across as really anxious and worried too.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 10:39 amYes, that is what Jean Twenge noticed when she compared the generation Z to previous generations at the same age:

With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person – perhaps why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

https://www.jeantwenge.com/igen-book-by-dr-jean-twenge/

I think you mean well, but I also think that the idea you support there leads to the implication that all people should always spend a lot of time with other people, and that not doing so is inherently bad, which strikes me as rather unfair towards the introverts among us. Some of us are better off having more of our contact with other people online rather than in real life.

For me personally, the ZBB contains more people who share enough of my interests and outlook to be fun to talk to than I could probably easily find near me in real life.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 11:23 am

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 10:26 am For that matter, many people including myself would regard an oligarchy of godlike supercomputers as downright dystopian, regardless of how much they guild our cages.

Are you thinking of the Culture? If so, I tend to agree... Iain M. Banks has a way of selling the idea, with very solid writing and nice prose, but the Minds are pretty disturbing when you stop and think about it!

Yes. The idea of a society run by super-intelligent AIs is creepy. In the Culture, the Minds are wise and benevolent, but I wouldn't trust such a régime. It may be a benevolent dictatorship, but still a dictatorship. Also, Banks was a socialist, and as I already have pointed out elsewhere, I feel that the socialists bark up the wrong tree. Sure, capitalism as it is practiced now has its problem (in the US variant much more so than in the European one), but it is IMHO not as much a matter of who owns the business enterprises but one of what those enterprises do. Free enterprise is a civil right; setting up and running a business is an act of self-realization, and a society without entrepeneurs doesn't work well, as the Soviet bloc has shown clearly enough.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 5:46 amFree enterprise is a civil right;

I completely disagree. Why would anyone have a "right" to boss others around? How do most people benefit from a "right" that most people never get to exercise? Now, I'm open to the idea of having a certain amount of free, "free", or semi-free enterprise. But I think economic policy should generally be based on what is most effective at supplying people with the things they need to live, not on abstract theoretical notions about rights. Perhaps policymakers should set policy in a way that allows entrepreneurship, or perhaps they shouldn't... ...but if they do, they should justify their decisions by saying something like "We've looked at it carefully, and we've decided that having entrepreneurs is the smaller evil compared to not having entrepreneurs", instead of justifying their decisions by saying "People have a right to be entrepreneurs".

setting up and running a business is an act of self-realization,

Yes, but one that the vast majority of people will never get to carry out.

and a society without entrepeneurs doesn't work well, as the Soviet bloc has shown clearly enough.

Now, that might be an argument in favor of having entrepreneurs, but it's a quite different from your earlier rights-based argument. And it might be possible to get some of the advances of entrepreneurship without going as far as actually allowing entrepreneurs to legally own businesses.

To me one has a right to start an enterprise, but everyone who works on it has a right to it, at least in proportion to how much work they have put in. There is no right to private property, as defined by title, as opposed to possession, as defined by use. For instance take a factory - it rightfully belongs not to some capitalist but rather to the workers who work there as it is collectively used by said workers. Furthermore, in the case of software everyone has the right to fork - or to merge - code because code is an intangible that does not lose value upon being copied.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 8:09 amBut I think economic policy should generally be based on what is most effective at supplying people with the things they need to live

Very much this. Most of the problems capitalism causes stem from the pursuit of profit over the pursuit of satisfying people's needs, so we could solve a lot of problems (such as food waste or carbon pollution) by changing the goal of our economies from profit to meeting needs.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 5:46 am Also, Banks was a socialist, and as I already have pointed out elsewhere, I feel that the socialists bark up the wrong tree.

The Culture is depicted as post-scarcity. In one sense I think that places it outside of economics entirely. But I believe Banks had the idea that capitalism is about the only thing that holds back, and that socialism would automatically lead to post-scarcity; it's a misconception I've often encountered.

Myself, I prefer the idea of a mixed economy... I don't really believe in utopia, but I believe an ideal, healthy society would feature a wide spectrum of approaches, some approaching socialism, some approaching capitalism.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 8:09 am Why would anyone have a "right" to boss others around? How do most people benefit from a "right" that most people never get to exercise?

It's nothing exceptional either; there are plenty of self employed people, and plenty of small business owners. Only a tiny, tiny minority will get to be Elon Musk... but running, I don't know, a small scale construction business is nothing exceptional. (And I should add, a lot more important in the grand scheme of things.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 4:40 pm

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 5:46 am Also, Banks was a socialist, and as I already have pointed out elsewhere, I feel that the socialists bark up the wrong tree.

The Culture is depicted as post-scarcity. In one sense I think that places it outside of economics entirely. But I believe Banks had the idea that capitalism is about the only thing that holds back, and that socialism would automatically lead to post-scarcity; it's a misconception I've often encountered.

Yes, it is a misconception. Why should socialism be more efficient in producing wealth? Fairer in distributing it, maybe, but that's another thing entirely. The Soviet bloc countries, at least, were monstrously inefficient, but then that's not really socialism as most socialists today understand it. Yugoslavia got closer to that, and was indeed more efficient, but other Mediterranean countries like Spain, Italy or Greece performed better. The main problem with socialism, as with most radical ideologies, I see in that it requires ideal human beings, and we know all to well that real human beings are far from ideal. (Of course, the homo oeconomicus assumed by capitalism is just as unreal.)

Myself, I prefer the idea of a mixed economy... I don't really believe in utopia, but I believe an ideal, healthy society would feature a wide spectrum of approaches, some approaching socialism, some approaching capitalism.

I also prefer the mixed economy. Utopia is unattainable, a good society model must take the imperfections of real human beings into account and embrace diversity.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 8:09 am Why would anyone have a "right" to boss others around? How do most people benefit from a "right" that most people never get to exercise?

It's nothing exceptional either; there are plenty of self employed people, and plenty of small business owners. Only a tiny, tiny minority will get to be Elon Musk... but running, I don't know, a small scale construction business is nothing exceptional. (And I should add, a lot more important in the grand scheme of things.)

Just that. With the "right to start and run a business" I did not mean a "right to boss employees around". First, not all employers are evil bosses - in fact, most aren't. Second, as you mention, there are plenty of small business owners. My parents had a small business, so I grew up thinking that it is quite normal to have one. I was thinking of that, not of hyper-greedy psychopathic freaks like Elon Musk who'd gladly sell nuclear bombs to terrorists as long as those pay the price they call. (Fortunately, electric cars and space transportation offer even better opportunities to get super-rich than that.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 4:40 pm The Culture is depicted as post-scarcity. In one sense I think that places it outside of economics entirely. But I believe Banks had the idea that capitalism is about the only thing that holds back, and that socialism would automatically lead to post-scarcity; it's a misconception I've often encountered.

What strikes me is that— no, its not post-scarcity, as we can see from the books. There is always something that not everyone can have, or do. Most of Banks's characters, in fact, are some sort of lone misfit who has skills that, somehow, are uncommon in a society of hundreds of billions.

One designs Orbitals, for instance— habitats for millions of people. Free energy or not, this is not a job that millions of people can have! Yet, surely tens of thousands of those people have the skillset to do this work. How is this work allocated? Whether it's a competition or sortition or the inscrutable choice of the Minds, how can it not feel oppressive to all the people who are not allowed to do it?

The hero of Player of Games is, well, a top-tier gamer, again the narrowest of elites, thus someone that the Minds will take into confidence (and use for their own games). Here I guess we can posit a meritocracy: if you have Culture-wide competitions, someone will win them. But again, in a culture of hundreds of billions of humanoids, the difference between the top guy, and the top million, will be minimal.

Bank's intention was of course that the Culture is post-scarcity in terms of basics: food, nice houses, entertainment options. Which is better than some people not having those things! But I feel that sf should think a little deeper. Is it actually healthy to continue celebrity culture in an sf utopia? There can only be one ultra-champion in chess, only one top-selling rock band, one most-produced playwright, whether a civ has 10,000 members or a trillion. I'm not sure any author has come up with a solution to this.

zompist wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 5:23 pmOne designs Orbitals, for instance— habitats for millions of people. Free energy or not, this is not a job that millions of people can have! Yet, surely tens of thousands of those people have the skillset to do this work. How is this work allocated? Whether it's a competition or sortition or the inscrutable choice of the Minds, how can it not feel oppressive to all the people who are not allowed to do it?

I suppose one way might be to keep it somewhat anon just who is a real habitat-designer and who does the habitat-designings for a job or a hobby...the robotic Minds would know who is who, but the humans and other species don't - given that nobody would see the entirety of a habitat, nobody would ever fully/truly know who was responsible for the design of any given habitat...there might be hunches, and a hope "this may be one i had a hand in"...but certainty would only be known by the Minds.

Bank's intention was of course that the Culture is post-scarcity in terms of basics: food, nice houses, entertainment options. Which is better than some people not having those things! But I feel that sf should think a little deeper. Is it actually healthy to continue celebrity culture in an sf utopia? There can only be one ultra-champion in chess, only one top-selling rock band, one most-produced playwright, whether a civ has 10,000 members or a trillion. I'm not sure any author has come up with a solution to this.

To be fair, is there a solution to that? I mean, even if society doesn't lionize and laud the champions and ultra-champions of chess and music groups (etc), the members who participate in those playings of chess and music will be aware of who is the best, and may keep track of such things.

And what are the Minds going to do? "No, no, stop trying to see who is better at chess"?

keenir wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 10:54 pm

But I feel that sf should think a little deeper. Is it actually healthy to continue celebrity culture in an sf utopia? There can only be one ultra-champion in chess, only one top-selling rock band, one most-produced playwright, whether a civ has 10,000 members or a trillion. I'm not sure any author has come up with a solution to this.

To be fair, is there a solution to that? I mean, even if society doesn't lionize and laud the champions and ultra-champions of chess and music groups (etc), the members who participate in those playings of chess and music will be aware of who is the best, and may keep track of such things.

And what are the Minds going to do? "No, no, stop trying to see who is better at chess"?

It's not a Culture thing, it's a tech thing. We have this problem already; it would be immensely worse in a galactic society. I'm just kind of surprised that a socialist like Banks didn't recognize the problem at all. (I didn't notice it myself until Nassim Taleb pointed it out.)

I understand that it may not register as a problem at all, or as you say, no solution may be evident. But society wasn't always like this. Just a couple centuries ago, for instance, music wasn't really a commodity, and barely a profession. In many cultures everyone can participate in music... indeed, if you weren't in the elite, the only way you were going to hear music was to make it yourself or with your friends.

Actually, conlanging is sort of a model. There is perhaps one superstar, but no one has to pay him homage or even consider his conlangs the best. People do this hobby because they like it, any skill level is OK, and are delighted if, say, five people really read their grammar. I don't think things would be improved if we had competitions and a huge market.

zompist wrote: ↑Sun Aug 27, 2023 2:46 am Actually, conlanging is sort of a model. There is perhaps one superstar […]

Yeah, and that’s you!

(Which of course just proves your point. I often argue with you about things.)