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San Francisco, 9:36 AM
Tue Nov 10
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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07:44 AM
-Kle. #kimstanleyrobinson
07:23 AM
06:07 AM
A great utopian fiction also covers all of the problems in society. But intellectually, subtly, subversively. It's not prescriptive except in the way that it teaches you how to look at the subtle currents in society as a whole, and examine the meanings in larger pictures.
Robinson is right that it's harder to do, but he doesn't fully get at why it's so much harder. Which is fair. He's an author, and author's don't study literature. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
...
This seems nice I guess. #startrek
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Nao, tis iz an storee aw abot hou
mai liffe got fleppd turnd upside dow.
Ann I laik two tak a minit
Jus siit rite heir
to rite in yew hou i bcam reel smert fer 1 yeer.
In nort neu york born an rased
In der bred factery is ware I spen mos o' my dais
Cleening out der ovons, an sweipin all da leeves
hannin at da lernin annix, lernin hao too reed
Wen a cuple of guye In wite lab cotes
Strted falloin me rond da neiberhod
I wuz making a book reeport bud tey stoaped mi tere and said 'we're taking yer braaine too hour lab fer sum repares!
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11/09/09
I bet he’s got a checklist. #flowersforalgernon
11/09/09
+1, Kim. #kimstanleyrobinson
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particularly because it doesn't, really; he gets smart;
the criticism of "you don't go full retard" is that Hollywood doesn't actually like retarded people struggling with everyday problems; only idiot-savants who have some sort of hidden talent, not everyday people-struggles. #flowersforalgernon
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Also there are science fiction stories where one civilization has spread out to include many cities, planets, or colonies where some are virtually utopias while others are very much dystopian factory worlds.
Also, a lot of stories I've read about utopian societies often suggest that there is something terribly wrong with the utopia at it's secret inner core or the author portrays a world where somehow people are no longer responsible for their own well being while still somehow retaining a great degree of personal freedom and growth while having almost no external challenges to overcome whatsoever. I think it'd be great if humanity could be so greatly self motivated but I imagine in such a world we'd look a lot like the fat people in WALL·E .
06:10 AM
I'm not trying to be snide here, but those are actually dystopian stories. They illustrate the abject failure of a utopian project. #kimstanleyrobinson
07:33 AM
Another thing occurred to me though; not everyone's utopia would be the same now would it? What may seem like a blissful society to some may be felt as stifling and oppressive to others. #kimstanleyrobinson
07:46 AM
But in broad terms, Utopian fiction is a type of fiction in which although the project seems largely successful, underlying tensions and currents in the story and in the people involved reveal difficulties, fragilities, even subtle tyrannies in the structure. No Utopia is perfect. As a classical scholar More knew this well when he named his book. In Greek u topos means both "perfect place" and "no place". It's still a "good" place, but where you find difficulties in that "goodness" is where thought is provoked.
A dystopian book is the chronicle of the total failure of that kind project. An outright tyranny, or a miserable population, or one chemically controlled, etc. etc. #kimstanleyrobinson