I read recently that most sci-fi writers these days are keeping away from the business of predicting technology – those tropes are too well-done, too quickly realized and therefore, the ability to think dizzyingly is being severely eroded.
I don’t blame them.
Read this one edition of NextDraft from last week – it is news curated by Dave Pell and helps me enormously as I try to protect the mind from being inundated with ‘breaking news’ every few minutes.:
- There is news on how a father-son doctor duo proctored and flooded the research bases with their own “studies” on the link between autism and vaccines. Then, they wrote further articles linking back to their own garbage as reference.
New York Times article: The Playbook used against Vaccines with the graphics and research laid out
We were discussing this over the week-end: the way to teach AI something wrong is also figuring out how much you are able to throw at it to learn from. If you throw enough articles that the United States flag is blue and green. In time, it will question and start to say that there are two factions of flags: one blue-and-green and another red-and-blue. Then, based on the sentiment analysis of the blue-and-green vs red-and-blue, it can start leaning towards green-and-blue, and in time, proclaim green-and-blue.
- Questioning vaccinations, Covid vaccinations, MMR – slowly allows you to question antibiotics in time. With RFK at the helm, I am at a loss to understand motivations here. They don’t seem to be economically motivated. I am not sure religion said anything against vaccines (against science maybe), so there may be a slight leaning there. Can you think of any other motivations?
- When the bureau of labor statistics was fired, he wasn’t just ‘fired’ for attention grabs. He was fired because ‘the powers’ did not like the data. I have worked with ‘data-driven’ leaders who only took the data if it worked with their warped aims. It does not bode well, nor does it end well. Data driven means you must be willing to change your mind based on the data, not only use it when it is convenient for you.
- Washington D C became unsafe and safe within days of getting what he wanted.
- The Zelensky-Putin-Trump situation is still muddled and volatile. Nobody knows who is on whose side. Like a bizarre Hunger Games.
- AI interviews a dead person making it what The Atlantic calls a ‘Mass Delusion Event’. What do we trust anymore?
- The newsletter combed the oceans to end on a beautiful note and therefore found this article on the best ocean photographs of the year:
Ursula Le Guin’s Essay on Science Fiction & Fantasy
This feels like a dystopian space-time to be in. Is this a fantasy story gone awry? A looming war in which we need to work hard to find where our moralities will lead us? I don’t know. All I know is that I have given up trying to understand what trends will prevail. Individuals being good doesn’t mean the collective of humanity is good and vice-versa. If there was one beautiful good-vs-evil arc, I am sure it will be easier. Don’t be a death eater. Voldemort isn’t going to be accepting or loving. See?
But fantasy doesn’t only write about good-vs-evil. It also writes about normal people making mistakes, normal people making choices, the difference and growth required to bounce back from them both.
I have been looking for several years for this essay by Ursula Le Guin on Science Fiction and Fantasy as a genre. It is not available online. I borrowed a copy of The Left Hand Side of Darkness in the Hainish Chronicles from the library, and there, as an introduction by the author, was this gem of the essay. There are times I wish I had an eidetic memory, and this was one of those times. In the meanwhile, here is an essay penned by Ursula Le Guin on the importance of Fantasy in our reading fare.
I will try to find that essay, but here is another essay on Fantasy by Ursula K LeGuin:
https://www.ursulakleguin.com/some-assumptions-about-fantasy
I don’t write about battles or wars at all. It seems to me that what I write about — like most novelists — is people making mistakes and people — other people or the same people — trying to prevent or correct those mistakes, while inevitably making more mistakes.
Sci-Fi Writers:What Should They Do?
The realities around us have made bizarre scenarios almost commonplace. Given this, how can any one writer hope to come up with technology that is supposed to wow this? The real world already has many of our horrors playing out real-time.
Biological warfare – ✅
Technological warfare – ✅
Sociological warfare – ✅
Chemical warfare – ✅
Nuclear warfare – ☑️
What are the frontiers left to sci-fi writers?
Therefore, they are going back to no-technology or minimum tech tropes in hopes of getting humans to think again. Without toys. Without tools. Just their brains, their sensory organs and themselves. I think I admire that.
Teaching us how to be human is one of the greatest skills we need to embrace, isn’t it?
Nourish-n-Cherish 