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Good science fiction is often more about the present than about the future: a projection of current problems into an amplified version of reality. Sometimes th

by narag 3y ago

Good science fiction is often more about the present than about the future: a projection of current problems into an amplified version of reality. Sometimes that device gets overdone: 2004 Battlestar Galactica felt to me carrying much of 9/11 background. Silent Running is far from alone in the pessimist outlook. It's funny that, living in a civilization so much indebted to technology, the stories that we keep telling ourselves about it are so negative. We've accepted that as a given. I recently enjoyed a lot Altered Carbon, that has as a premise a technology that provides immortality for the masses. Well, guess what: that good guys are trying to destroy it. Because reasons. Also the cities seem like a shithole, not sure why.

southernplaces7 3y ago
> I recently enjoyed a lot Altered Carbon I really recommend you give the trilogy of books in which that story happens a try. They go into a lot more detail about how the Protectorate (all the worlds colonized by Earth's UN government) is and delve a lot into the practical economic details of different characters lives. This includes minor characters. I'm not sure how badly the TV series mangled the essential backstory and plot of the books, since I disliked it nearly from the start, but in the books, nobody is opposed to immortality for the masses and though there are a lot of grim details about life in that future, for most people it's described as being more or less decent. The governments of the different worlds offer social welfare, economic freedom, religious freedom and so forth. There are economic booms and busts but overall life isn't absolutely shitty. People also generally get sleeve insurance (something like health insurance but for having a new body on standby), nanotechnology to conserve health from birth in babies and so forth. In many ways it's like a futuristic version of life for many in the developed world today, except that governments in the books tend to be self serving, often corrupt oligarchies and the justice systems are often draconian and corrupt too... Oh wait.

by narag 3y ago

southernplaces7 3y ago

> I recently enjoyed a lot Altered Carbon I really recommend you give the trilogy of books in which that story happens a try. They go into a lot more detail about how the Protectorate (all the worlds colonized by Earth's UN government) is and delve a lot into the practical economic details of different characters lives. This includes minor characters. I'm not sure how badly the TV series mangled the essential backstory and plot of the books, since I disliked it nearly from the start, but in the books, nobody is opposed to immortality for the masses and though there are a lot of grim details about life in that future, for most people it's described as being more or less decent. The governments of the different worlds offer social welfare, economic freedom, religious freedom and so forth. There are economic booms and busts but overall life isn't absolutely shitty. People also generally get sleeve insurance (something like health insurance but for having a new body on standby), nanotechnology to conserve health from birth in babies and so forth. In many ways it's like a futuristic version of life for many in the developed world today, except that governments in the books tend to be self serving, often corrupt oligarchies and the justice systems are often draconian and corrupt too... Oh wait.