#ICYMI (as I did), this is an excellent op-ed by @cstross on the politically & ideologically-loaded background of the cult of unfettered tech optimism & its billionaire bros.
As Charlie says, science fiction is fundamentally just entertainment & often highly derivative, not the philosophical blueprint for the future of humankind.
@cobalt@cstross Legend has it that Hubbard decided that the best way to get rich is to found a religion, so he did.
But his life story paints him as a delusional narcissist & conman who aggressively attacked anyone who questioned the grift at the base of Dianetics & Scientology.
Perhaps not so far then from some of the ways the self-appointed tech gods approach the world.
It is nice though when sci-fi takes a more character-focused, humanist approach even if derivative or just another Class War set on Mars a la Red Rising. Seems like these tech moguls only internalized the right wing stuff.
@hannu_ikonen@cstross Fully agreed – there is some very well-considered sci-fi out there, even ignored by the billionaire bozos.
I was invited on BBC Radio 4 Today a few years ago to talk about golden age sci-fi on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the well-known authors.
To the slight consternation of the interviewer, I dismissed much of that & switched to talking about more modern, humanist works far from the 50s-70s mindset 🙂
@hannu_ikonen@markmccaughrean It is REMARKABLE how known transphobe Elon Musk stans Iain Banks' Culture novels to the point of naming drone ships after Culture spacecraft—the Culture being a communist interstellar polity whose members can (and do) change sex at will. Musk is literally the villain-archetype in those books. And he doesn't notice!
@cstross@hannu_ikonen@markmccaughrean There are a shockingly-large number of conservative folks out there who not only miss subtext in art but actual text, leaving them only the most superficial of understandings of that art. I mean, thinking "Rage Against the Machine" supports their politics, the Galactic Empire are the goodies, and all that.
(Perhaps that's one reason "Socialist Realism" and such appeals to them so much? It's definitely why they're drawn to Biblical literalism.)
@cstross@hannu_ikonen@markmccaughrean I'm a mom of a transgirl with a father with a similarly (though obviously less powerful) unintrospective ego. There really is no bottom, and absolutely no awareness.
I guess it's fine as long as it's imaginary? Except... yeah. We often imagine what IS.
I always found it funny that Bezos saved The Expanse from cancellation as he liked the show, but didn’t seem to realise that he was essentially Jules-Pierre Mao, the central evil capitalist character 🤪
@michaelgemar@cstross Indeed. One does have to believe that Iain is probably spinning superluminally in his grave at the extent to which Musk has misread the room.
Unless he sees himself as a member of Special Circumstances, “the elite of the elite, in a society which abhorred elitism”, as Banks put it 🤷♂️
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