4 ms·

This article seems to be aimed at the Astrophysics PhD-holding crowd. Should be called "Science-fictional shibboleths for the overly pedantic".

sideshowb 11y ago
Fair play to the author for being honest about their tastes, but I can't see these issues being shared by the majority of readers. The counterargument to some of those issues was drafted over 50 years ago in the form of Clarke's first and third law: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Accompanying these, Clarke wrote a detailed essay on all the reasons why spaceflight was once deemed impossible by a lot of well respected scientists.
marktangotango 11y ago
Knowing what is realistic with currently understood science, makes the fantastical even more fantastic. Authors who get this can craft exceeding pleasing stories and plot hooks.
mcguire 11y ago
Premises: 1. "Upshot: any work of SF that takes 'Lunar 3He mining' as an economic premise is about as plausible as one that assumes combustion powered by the release of phlogiston." 2. This argument applies to essentially anything requiring space travel. It's expensive, very delayed, unworkable based on any kind of science as we know her today, low margin, and generally silly. Conclusion: Charlie, as a science fiction reader, has very little reading to do. * "Faceless 80's style corporations ruling entire planets (hint: who handles the externalities?)" I dunno, who handles the externalities for 2010s-style faceless corporations? * "small farming planets (hint: just one ecosystem for a planet?)" Yeah, that one's pretty stanky. * "the glib dismissal of life support systems in space as trivially easy to maintain" If it's not trivial, it's not likely to work very well over any kind of long-term. Any system that requires heroic efforts from superior individuals is going to fail in short order, very likely the second time it is used. Of course, it may fail spectacularly, dramatically, and very entertainingly. But probably not. * "political structures based on design patterns proven to be unworkable in the context of any society more modern than the late middle ages" Anyone got an example of a political structure proven to be workable in the context of, etc, etc? * "AIs that follow the disembodied-brain-in-a-box mode of Hal 9000" It's been a while, is that the Berkeley response or John Searle's? * "futures in which we wear mini-dresses and three-piece suits, drive gas-burning automobiles (or hovercars: it's just a rabbit/smeerp replacement), carry handguns (or blasters: see rabbit/smeerp), eat the kind of food we eat today, live the kind of way we live today, and most importantly think the way we think today" Unfortunately, any use of the term "cache-sex" is verboten and should be expunged from the literature as she is known. The writer of such should be expunged from existence. Conclusion: "Edit: if there's an entry for your pet shibboleth in the Turkey City Lexicon don't bother repeating it here—I'm taking familiarity with the canonical list of cliches as a given." Given that most of this article either appears in the canonical list, or ought to if Sterling and what's-his-name had thought of it, this ending makes the article delightfully self-negating. Très poste-moderne! On the other hand, this kind of list of things-I-hate-about-all-of-the-rest-of-you has been rather done to death; examples in any decent library abound in much the same way as silverfish. See, por ejemplo, Strunk and White. 4/10. A good effort, but not extraordinary.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  John Company and VOC manged to rule large parts of the far east.

sideshowb 11y ago

Fair play to the author for being honest about their tastes, but I can't see these issues being shared by the majority of readers. The counterargument to some of those issues was drafted over 50 years ago in the form of Clarke's first and third law: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Accompanying these, Clarke wrote a detailed essay on all the reasons why spaceflight was once deemed impossible by a lot of well respected scientists.

marktangotango 11y ago

Knowing what is realistic with currently understood science, makes the fantastical even more fantastic. Authors who get this can craft exceeding pleasing stories and plot hooks.

mcguire 11y ago

Premises: 1. "Upshot: any work of SF that takes 'Lunar 3He mining' as an economic premise is about as plausible as one that assumes combustion powered by the release of phlogiston." 2. This argument applies to essentially anything requiring space travel. It's expensive, very delayed, unworkable based on any kind of science as we know her today, low margin, and generally silly. Conclusion: Charlie, as a science fiction reader, has very little reading to do. * "Faceless 80's style corporations ruling entire planets (hint: who handles the externalities?)" I dunno, who handles the externalities for 2010s-style faceless corporations? * "small farming planets (hint: just one ecosystem for a planet?)" Yeah, that one's pretty stanky. * "the glib dismissal of life support systems in space as trivially easy to maintain" If it's not trivial, it's not likely to work very well over any kind of long-term. Any system that requires heroic efforts from superior individuals is going to fail in short order, very likely the second time it is used. Of course, it may fail spectacularly, dramatically, and very entertainingly. But probably not. * "political structures based on design patterns proven to be unworkable in the context of any society more modern than the late middle ages" Anyone got an example of a political structure proven to be workable in the context of, etc, etc? * "AIs that follow the disembodied-brain-in-a-box mode of Hal 9000" It's been a while, is that the Berkeley response or John Searle's? * "futures in which we wear mini-dresses and three-piece suits, drive gas-burning automobiles (or hovercars: it's just a rabbit/smeerp replacement), carry handguns (or blasters: see rabbit/smeerp), eat the kind of food we eat today, live the kind of way we live today, and most importantly think the way we think today" Unfortunately, any use of the term "cache-sex" is verboten and should be expunged from the literature as she is known. The writer of such should be expunged from existence. Conclusion: "Edit: if there's an entry for your pet shibboleth in the Turkey City Lexicon don't bother repeating it here—I'm taking familiarity with the canonical list of cliches as a given." Given that most of this article either appears in the canonical list, or ought to if Sterling and what's-his-name had thought of it, this ending makes the article delightfully self-negating. Très poste-moderne! On the other hand, this kind of list of things-I-hate-about-all-of-the-rest-of-you has been rather done to death; examples in any decent library abound in much the same way as silverfish. See, por ejemplo, Strunk and White. 4/10. A good effort, but not extraordinary.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
John Company and VOC manged to rule large parts of the far east.