SF and the prophets of doom

[Anthony G Williams]

Deborah Orr, a regular columnist in The Independent newspaper, has written an interesting piece (in the 25/7/07 edition) on the place of science fiction and fantasy in modern literature, with particular reference to dystopian thinking in general and the disasters (actual and potential) of modern life in particular.

Basically, she argues that we need to study the dystopic view of our future as shown in some SF, or we'll never change our attitudes enough to avert upcoming disasters. There's a summary and comments on my blog.

 

[Neal Asher]

Posted on your blog too:

The book to study might be Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! (which became the movie Soylent Green) since many of ostensible problems of this world are really symptoms of excessive population. If AGW is a reality and CO2 the cause, then it's more about how many of us there are rather than about the CO2 each person produces. Environmentalists should remember this as they demand we go green. It's a sticking plaster, and most of them are still splopping out the kids and adding to a population that simply cannot be sustained by windmills and organic cabbage.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Posted on your blog too:

The book to study might be Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! (which became the movie Soylent Green) since many of ostensible problems of this world are really symptoms of excessive population. If AGW is a reality and CO2 the cause, then it's more about how many of us there are rather than about the CO2 each person produces. Environmentalists should remember this as they demand we go green. It's a sticking plaster, and most of them are still splopping out the kids and adding to a population that simply cannot be sustained by windmills and organic cabbage.

I agree. There's also Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar IIRC, although it's several decades since I last read it.

Curiously enough, the population issue features in a book called Scales as well.

 

[j d worthington]

I tend to agree with the thesis. Frankly, I think it would be quite fruitful to have a course in reading science fiction as a way of looking at various problems we face (or are likely to face in the near future) and how to rethink our approaches to these...

 

[mightymem]

Very interesting and I must say peoples ideals need to envolve to suit change in the future. Many of the ideas such as Socialism, liberalism and capitalism all are so entrenched with educated peoples opinions, maybe there is a need to move away from this idealistic beliefs as our society
has changed to such a degree these ideologies basic frame work are not workable or even realistic anymore. Science fiction maybe a key as long as its combined with a understanding of whats happening know and does not become to fantastic. Anything that helps people move on and improve should be ignored. Great blog by the way

 

[Interference]

Everything in science fiction, accurate or otherwise, has been part of a futurist thought experiment at some time or another. Nobody ever listened to the soothsayer's predictions of doom. People build houses on volcanic islands and along tectonic plates. Flooding is the new Flood.

But our civilisation is doomed. The human race will be a very different gang of guys and gals a few generations down the line. Change will happen, not because of us, but in spite of us.

Why do depressives get so depressed? Because they worry about what's going to worry them. See? Double the worry of anyone else. Should we worry about the future, then, and then, finding we can't do anything about it, regret a wasted lifetime of conservation and energy-saving? What a miserable bunch we'd all be.

The see-change will be brought about by our elected leaders, just as they always have been. As long as they and their daddies and their children can be irresponsible and rich, they won't pay any attention to any arguments we might put to them that we've gleaned from Harry Harrison or Jules Verne.

I'm taking my tablet, now. Back to normal tomorrow.