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The Singularity Backlash
San Francisco, 7:42 AM
Wed Dec 16
25 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/09/09
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07/09/09
Oh, and:
"Singularity science fiction follows a Moore's Law of the future, where science improves our lives exponentially over time."
No wonder they call it "fiction." It's a very naiive way of looking at human societies.
07/09/09
I would tend to say that the show was about the value in trying to make a tiny, personal difference at great cost, even though injustice is going to prevail no matter what you do.
-Kle.
07/09/09
07/10/09
-Kle.
07/09/09
Same reason you don't see truly alien aliens in SF. It's still fiction written by humans for human consumption.
07/09/09
07/08/09
Maybe I don't understand it correctly, but doesn't the Singularity entail the creation of an intelligence that keeps improving itself, which results in the improvement of all our lives? Answers to questions our lame human brains can't answer? Like renewable, clean fuel? Interstellar (or at least interplanetary) space travel? Male pattern baldness?
Dang, I can't wait?
07/09/09
07/08/09
I'm thinking that this anti-singularity style is just about making the science fiction more mainstream. It's easier for the reader to relate to these people, and it's much easier to write and imagine as well. I think the interest in the super being also came and faded with 1980s New Age movement...
Firefly, cowboys in space, I think was all about being more mainstream, as was the re-imaging of Galactica (a military submarine story combined with a soap elements).
Hey, Stargate had both the ascended Ancients and the hundreds of similar - and cheap to setup - agrarian villages..:P
07/08/09
07/08/09
Why is it so hard to imagine a solar system with hundreds of planets? I always thought that fact made the show more believable, no need for light speed travel. Not to mention a vacuum that for once doesn't transmit sound. And considering that there are plenty of places on Earth today that rely entirely on subsistence farming, I don't think it's all that ridiculous to think that such places will exist in the future as well.
07/09/09
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07/10/09
The Firefly 'verse clearly establishes that some of the worlds were moons, asteroids, etc. along with the multiple stars. The OP seems to have missed the complexity of the Firefly situation in his need to dismiss it.
Which is also why I threw in the bit about terraforming. The whole plot of "Serenity" depends on terraforming!
07/08/09
Yes, it's a hyper-exaggerated look at the future, but how do you think our current civilization looks to someone born in the early portion of the 20th Century? My mother was born in 1936 and she hasn't a clue how to exist and function in the world today. If it weren't for the fact that just because newer technologies appear but *older* tech doesn't disappear overnight, she'd be unable to survive on her own without a minder. Even at the height of a technological singularity, and after, older tech will still exist and be used around the world. No one ever said the Singularity will apply to everyone, but everyone will be *touched* by it in some fashion.
07/09/09
Should I call her cell phone or email her laptop?
Probably should email -- wouldn't want to interrupt her video games, online research, DVD watching, or microwave dinner.
07/09/09
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07/08/09
Speaking of Robinson, Spider doesn't get much credit for his contribution to the concept. Time Pressure in '87 had a singularity-like situation where people from the future went to save our souls, literally.
Besides, zombies are survival horror, so I don't see the comparison to singularity. Steampunk (and lately Atompunk) have more to do with aesthetics than sci-fi literature. The stories that DO have Steampunk elements usually either take place in the past or in an alternate universe.
Also, Firefly as anti-singularity? That's a stretch, like calling Star Trek anti-Babylon 5. Just a different future, that's all.
As much as I'd like a singularity, the future will be like the present. Perhaps a little crowded, but the technology will be much better and, one hopes, people will live longer and happier...that certainly seems to be the trend.
07/08/09
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07/08/09
Of course, what is happiness. You may disagree with their interpretation. I know people myself for whom the ability to drive a better car, own a nicer lawn or wear more expensive shoes than those around them is the driving aspect of their lives and for whom these things, they would claim on their deathbed, make them happy.
07/08/09
Don't care about the shoes, lawn, or cars or if the folks next door have better ice cream and a bigger TV, though.
07/08/09
But like all daydreams of the dot-com era -- Beenz, Flooz, the Pets.com puppet and all -- it died when it hit reality. Technology isn't advancing exponentially (what does that even mean?), and the world isn't getting better or less comprehensible because of our new gadgets and websites. Similarly, I feel that authors got bored with this new concept, or wrung all the stories they could from it, and have in a typical cultural reaction-formation, are looking at its opposite for new dramatic ideas.
07/08/09
07/08/09
Later authors posited that the Singularity was inevitable, simply b/c of the rate we are inventing things, as opposed to Vinge's specific single happening under specific circumstances.
(also, Flooz -- nobody at the time with any brains thought that was a good idea! but I do miss Webvan.)