I think it would be fun for a science fiction author to challenge you and come up with an optimistic future that DOESN'T contain those points. At first blush it feels doable, at least on some technicalities. And it kinda feels like something Becky Chambers might try to tackle.
Material abundance: An author could extrapolate from current trends of dematerialisation, mixing in things like ideas from Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing. A lot of our current concepts of material abundance are a reaction to the general lack of stuff in history. Obviously this future scifi society would in some very real sense still have material abundance. But it might not manifest in the usual obvious ways. Maybe everyone lives isolated pastoral homestead existences ... but nanobots make sure the air and water is pristine, diseases quickly eradicated, and any accidents summon help.
Egalitarianism: I think there are many ways we could hack our tribal monkey brains to accept living in a very non-egalitarian society. We mostly want egalitarianism within "our society". And at this exact moment in technical, social, cultural history "our society" has become very broadly defined. I can see someone across the planet, with a different religion and a different skin-tone, livestreaming something and they are, in some sense, part of my society. But what if we are dealing with large space-time delays? Will humans in Alpha Centauri, who recieve their Facebook Livestreams on a 4 year delay, really care if Earthers are richer than them? And then throw in a transhumanist future. In Vernor Vinge's books no one is up in arms that the superintelligences "have more" than humans.
Human agency: I admit this is a tough nut to crack without sliding into dystopia. I have a vague memory of an old Isaac Asimov short story about a future run by supercomputers that gave humans the veneer of agency. So perhaps something where human agency is a welcome, actively-chosen illusion. Kind of like how some people prefer All-inclusive luxury resorts or cruises for their holidays. Or perhaps some sort of philosophical upheaval when humanity abandons its fundamental speciesism when it steps into the bigger community of alien species, experiencing a kind of species-wide existential crisis. Or perhaps all of humanity takes a more meditative turn towards acceptance, instead of striving to change, once we've eliminated vast swathes of human misery. Humanity strives because it has only been around a few thousand years. Will this kind of striving still make sense when our culture is 50,000 years old and we've moved all the big boulders?
Dunno, this one is definitely trickier than the others.
Jan 17, 2022·edited Jan 17, 2022Liked by Noah Smith
Deep Space Nine is, to me, the most optimistic trek because it takes challenges to the TNG arguments extremely seriously, and challenges the Federation to make its progressive arguments in the face of a crew largely opposed or indifferent, and a scarred captain. People say DS9 is dark but it really believes in the Roddenberry vision, it just spends a lot more time focusing on how hard it might be to get there. In fact, when they go back in time, Bashir is furious that in the 2020s, despite so much technology and abundance, humans just don't care enough to help eachother.
The answer is, looking at the past. Things are better than they ever were by almost any measure—and getting better yet. The kids today are more caring and empathetic than ever.
The Expanse is a great show! That being said, it’s funny that you talk about it being optimistic - given how much more optimistic the books are in comparison. That starts from the depiction of the characters being more optimistic and the faith in humanity the books explicitly show us when they end. Highly recommend reading them.
It seems like I missed out on a lot of science fiction. The last series I read was Hyperion which (Spoiler alert) basically saw humanity rally in the face of a common enemy, the all-powerful Shrike, but it turned out that was just someone from the future destorying the people in power in the present, the New Vatican that had been secretly dooming everyone to death. Similarly, the gods were always all around us (the Lions and the Tigers and the Bears) and were waiting for us to go back to the start. (end spoiler)
And then everything was fine and dandy. I got frustrated at the simplistic vision of the future but it did teach me one important thing: Humanity needs to rally together and nothing gets us united like a common enemy. COVID-19, climate change and the illusion of superpower rivalry don't work so I'm not sure what will.
I just don’t know how you have 2 and 3. Would Elon take the risks he did if the payout was 200K a year.
It’s this question that lies at the route of the conservative vs liberal divide.
I’m sure you will be disappointed in me…. Up I suspect without inequality, progress halts.
Obviously there is a balance to be struck. And I am firmly on the tax the really wealthy side of things, but I am also a sceptic about human nature. A vast number of people would be lazy if they were to be handed all they need with no strings. This inevitably results in resentment.
Equality for opportunity is what you really need. Or at least recognition f greatness from unlikely sources.
Your statement that Earth is starving in Expanse S6 due to over-population is _not_ what was presented in the show. Earth is starving because Inaros' campaign of asteroid strikes changed weather and soil chemistry enough to cause catastrophic crop failures, everywhere.
I can't recall you mentioning the The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton. I enjoyed that series because, by and large, it does portray an optimistic future. Hamilton's future is built on us largely conquering death and the consequences that entail. I'm not an economist but I think the some the socioeconomic issues are interesting.
Great post. Just curious - Have you taken a look at the “economic science fictions” collection of essays from mit press? The Luna trilogy by Ian McDonald has an interesting “human agency” arc toward moral/economic justice across the books imho despite starting out very much as GoT-on-the-moon…
I'm can't deny the optimism embodied in ST: TNG, but I do question the kind of egalitarianism it presents. Jean-Luc Picard and the rest of the bridge crew plus the chief engineer and ship's physician are clearly part of the one percent of their society at minimum. It may be that Starfleet officers as a whole are part of the one percent and that bridge crews are more like the point zero one percent. Outside of Starfleet, Picard grew up at and eventually inherits Château Picard, a vineyard and lordly estate in La Barre, France. I'm pretty sure estates like that don't grow on trees, even in the Star Trek universe.
I'm not complaining about Picard's fortune, but when some people are as materially and socially privileged as Picard, it's hard to reconcile that with the compressed economic and status stratum popularly attributed to the Star Trek universe. At the very least, the kind of egalitarianism that has been achieved in Star Trek seems like it consists of raising the floor for humanity rather than eliminating the gap between those at the bottom and those at the top.
So maybe we aren't really seeing egalitarianism in the Star Trek universe, but the result of the fourth element of optimistic sci-fi. Futuristic technologies and institutions have reduced greed, but they've done it across all of humanity rather than just at the top. Those at the top are more likely to see and respect those beneath them, but at the same time, people at the bottom are less likely to covet and harbor resentment for the possessions, status, and lifestyles of those at the top.
I think finding ways to reduce greed and resentment at the bottom, separate from any redistributive policies, is an underrated method of improving the wellbeing of society. This is most clear when you look at the converse. Surely actively stoking greed and resentment among those at the bottom of society is not a good thing! Those that do are basically the left equivalent of the far-right accelerationists, hoping to spark a great class war to overturn capitalism.
I think it would be fun for a science fiction author to challenge you and come up with an optimistic future that DOESN'T contain those points. At first blush it feels doable, at least on some technicalities. And it kinda feels like something Becky Chambers might try to tackle.
Material abundance: An author could extrapolate from current trends of dematerialisation, mixing in things like ideas from Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing. A lot of our current concepts of material abundance are a reaction to the general lack of stuff in history. Obviously this future scifi society would in some very real sense still have material abundance. But it might not manifest in the usual obvious ways. Maybe everyone lives isolated pastoral homestead existences ... but nanobots make sure the air and water is pristine, diseases quickly eradicated, and any accidents summon help.
Egalitarianism: I think there are many ways we could hack our tribal monkey brains to accept living in a very non-egalitarian society. We mostly want egalitarianism within "our society". And at this exact moment in technical, social, cultural history "our society" has become very broadly defined. I can see someone across the planet, with a different religion and a different skin-tone, livestreaming something and they are, in some sense, part of my society. But what if we are dealing with large space-time delays? Will humans in Alpha Centauri, who recieve their Facebook Livestreams on a 4 year delay, really care if Earthers are richer than them? And then throw in a transhumanist future. In Vernor Vinge's books no one is up in arms that the superintelligences "have more" than humans.
Human agency: I admit this is a tough nut to crack without sliding into dystopia. I have a vague memory of an old Isaac Asimov short story about a future run by supercomputers that gave humans the veneer of agency. So perhaps something where human agency is a welcome, actively-chosen illusion. Kind of like how some people prefer All-inclusive luxury resorts or cruises for their holidays. Or perhaps some sort of philosophical upheaval when humanity abandons its fundamental speciesism when it steps into the bigger community of alien species, experiencing a kind of species-wide existential crisis. Or perhaps all of humanity takes a more meditative turn towards acceptance, instead of striving to change, once we've eliminated vast swathes of human misery. Humanity strives because it has only been around a few thousand years. Will this kind of striving still make sense when our culture is 50,000 years old and we've moved all the big boulders?
Dunno, this one is definitely trickier than the others.
Deep Space Nine is, to me, the most optimistic trek because it takes challenges to the TNG arguments extremely seriously, and challenges the Federation to make its progressive arguments in the face of a crew largely opposed or indifferent, and a scarred captain. People say DS9 is dark but it really believes in the Roddenberry vision, it just spends a lot more time focusing on how hard it might be to get there. In fact, when they go back in time, Bashir is furious that in the 2020s, despite so much technology and abundance, humans just don't care enough to help eachother.
https://youtu.be/ugTTy_u61gM
https://youtu.be/ZOjG8Ditub8
The answer is, looking at the past. Things are better than they ever were by almost any measure—and getting better yet. The kids today are more caring and empathetic than ever.
The Expanse is a great show! That being said, it’s funny that you talk about it being optimistic - given how much more optimistic the books are in comparison. That starts from the depiction of the characters being more optimistic and the faith in humanity the books explicitly show us when they end. Highly recommend reading them.
It seems like I missed out on a lot of science fiction. The last series I read was Hyperion which (Spoiler alert) basically saw humanity rally in the face of a common enemy, the all-powerful Shrike, but it turned out that was just someone from the future destorying the people in power in the present, the New Vatican that had been secretly dooming everyone to death. Similarly, the gods were always all around us (the Lions and the Tigers and the Bears) and were waiting for us to go back to the start. (end spoiler)
And then everything was fine and dandy. I got frustrated at the simplistic vision of the future but it did teach me one important thing: Humanity needs to rally together and nothing gets us united like a common enemy. COVID-19, climate change and the illusion of superpower rivalry don't work so I'm not sure what will.
Great post as always.
I just don’t know how you have 2 and 3. Would Elon take the risks he did if the payout was 200K a year.
It’s this question that lies at the route of the conservative vs liberal divide.
I’m sure you will be disappointed in me…. Up I suspect without inequality, progress halts.
Obviously there is a balance to be struck. And I am firmly on the tax the really wealthy side of things, but I am also a sceptic about human nature. A vast number of people would be lazy if they were to be handed all they need with no strings. This inevitably results in resentment.
Equality for opportunity is what you really need. Or at least recognition f greatness from unlikely sources.
Your statement that Earth is starving in Expanse S6 due to over-population is _not_ what was presented in the show. Earth is starving because Inaros' campaign of asteroid strikes changed weather and soil chemistry enough to cause catastrophic crop failures, everywhere.
I can't recall you mentioning the The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton. I enjoyed that series because, by and large, it does portray an optimistic future. Hamilton's future is built on us largely conquering death and the consequences that entail. I'm not an economist but I think the some the socioeconomic issues are interesting.
Great post. Just curious - Have you taken a look at the “economic science fictions” collection of essays from mit press? The Luna trilogy by Ian McDonald has an interesting “human agency” arc toward moral/economic justice across the books imho despite starting out very much as GoT-on-the-moon…
I'm can't deny the optimism embodied in ST: TNG, but I do question the kind of egalitarianism it presents. Jean-Luc Picard and the rest of the bridge crew plus the chief engineer and ship's physician are clearly part of the one percent of their society at minimum. It may be that Starfleet officers as a whole are part of the one percent and that bridge crews are more like the point zero one percent. Outside of Starfleet, Picard grew up at and eventually inherits Château Picard, a vineyard and lordly estate in La Barre, France. I'm pretty sure estates like that don't grow on trees, even in the Star Trek universe.
I'm not complaining about Picard's fortune, but when some people are as materially and socially privileged as Picard, it's hard to reconcile that with the compressed economic and status stratum popularly attributed to the Star Trek universe. At the very least, the kind of egalitarianism that has been achieved in Star Trek seems like it consists of raising the floor for humanity rather than eliminating the gap between those at the bottom and those at the top.
So maybe we aren't really seeing egalitarianism in the Star Trek universe, but the result of the fourth element of optimistic sci-fi. Futuristic technologies and institutions have reduced greed, but they've done it across all of humanity rather than just at the top. Those at the top are more likely to see and respect those beneath them, but at the same time, people at the bottom are less likely to covet and harbor resentment for the possessions, status, and lifestyles of those at the top.
I think finding ways to reduce greed and resentment at the bottom, separate from any redistributive policies, is an underrated method of improving the wellbeing of society. This is most clear when you look at the converse. Surely actively stoking greed and resentment among those at the bottom of society is not a good thing! Those that do are basically the left equivalent of the far-right accelerationists, hoping to spark a great class war to overturn capitalism.