I’ve been inspired by Ian Banks. Over the past 5 or so years I’ve been reading and re-reading the culture novels and really picking apart what made them work so damn well… all to the effect of trying my own hand at science fiction with a positive slant. I think stories with such outlooks will become extremely pertinent as our technological march forward continues, especially with such things as AI.
It's not technically scifi, but Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur covers ALL the subjects that scifi covers, and he refuses to get grimdark about it. In fact, he's where I learned about Warhammer, because whenever he discussed a particular treacherous paradigm, he'd usually say, don't worry, it'll be alright, this isn't Warhammer.
I also follow Isaac Arthur's channel. And it's incredible how he demonstrates that, although the world is not a Utopia, the future does not necessarily need to be pessimistic. That there are countless scientifically realistic and plausible solutions to various problems addressed by science fiction.
Also can’t ignore that SciFi used to be marketed mostly a young men and boys, essentially slightly above comic book age. Since around 1970, SciFi has become literary. It used to be that there were no serious, quality SciFi movies u til 2001 came out and the world saw what was possible. Same thing w books. They used to be more “gee whiz” sort of things, until they weren’t. Now they are literary with some, like The Handmaid’s Tale and The Road, being included as fine literature in some canons.
Jules Verne was sci-fi in the 1800s. John Campbell did hard sci-fi in the 1930s. It ebbs and flows with more general cultural tends. Look what's happened to art.
Verne was Steam Punk so real culprit was how GI Bill and other social programs dumped too many unproductive social science and humanities majors who could not get jobs so go read "Offspring of Empire" by Eckert Carter of how they quote cold fusion pioneer Noguchi on how "Social agitators had infiltrated universities hostile to real engineering".
Great video, Darrel. Such an interesting topic. HG Wells is often classified as a "utopian" science fiction writer, yet he also explored dystopian themes, such as in The Time Machine and When the Sleeper Wakes, while even in bleak dystopias, like Nineteen Eighty-Four, there are the occasional (fleeting) glimpses of a utopia. It is always fun to spot the hidden utopia in a dystopia and the hidden dystopia in a utopia. Well, I think so anyway!
It's perfectly fine if you prefer positive, hopeful and highly unlikely sci-fi. It's also fine if you prefer sci-fi that is more grounded in our current understanding of human nature, power and politics...and, therefore, more "realistic."
I see it in the sci-fi shorts on the DUST channel. They are relentlessly dour and humourless. To the point where the story becomes entirely predictable because the ending is a foregone conclusion. It's going to end badly for all involved. Perhaps part of the problem is that many sci-fi writers take themselves, and their genre, way too seriously...
@@ThreeRunHomer Thanks. I just got a copy of A Psalm for the Wild Built. Haven't started it yet. Doctorow is always on my radar. After reading up on it I think a few Bruce Sterling novels and short stories qualify.
Islands in the Net is one example by Sterling. It's from 1988 but seems to fit the bill. Won the John W. Campbell, and was nominated for a Hugo and Locus that year. I haven't read it since, but I still think about it in reference to current events and tech. I may have to dig it out.
I grew up in the age of Heinlein's series, Methuselah's Children, Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love. They all showed, in spite of the troubles we could move on and be better people. Now days it is all about anger, hatred and any ideas of love, family and patriotism are foolish.
Much of the scifi I have read in recent years have both optimism and pessimism in them. The Intrepid Saga by M. D. Cooper is a good example of this: Solar system is plagued by corruption, decay, and terrorism, and interstellar colony ship Intrepid set out towards more positive future. Definitely some optimism and pessimism in this novel trilogy, and both are given plenty of pages.
Right. And that mixture, when done well, is otherwise known as complexity or nuance. Reality usually isn't all one thing (whether entirely optimistic or entirely bleak) so it makes sense that fiction which is aiming for plausibility and emotional resonance isn't either. I think maybe some people miss the simple escapism they got from sci-fi as kids (even sci-fi that depicted dark events) and are mixing up the fact that their reading experience is rarely like that anymore (because they got older) with sci-fi having become uniformly bleak.
Great vid I do think that there needs to be a clearer distinction between speculative fiction and sci-fi. I like my sci-fi books to have at least one spaceship journey in them.
The aliens, inter-planet travel , flying cars, and what not. were predictions of 20th century, and they were as somewhere between fairy tales and horror stories.
Wrell, there are days that I truly miss uplifting TV shows like the Space Family Robinson, the original Star Trek or Space 1999. But then: robotic space exploration is doing great (the Solar System more or less mapped), we have two orbital space stations (one Chinese) in operation and manned lunar exploration is again on the horizon. So no reason at all for pessimism!
Pretty much agree with all of your comments. All I can add is that alot of what was sci-fi back in the 1930's -50's has now become reality. This provides authors new ways of interpreting these themes, usually in a negative way. When something is no longer fantastical and becomes part of everyday life it often becomes less exciting and less appealing. Examples would be. Rockets that land themselves (Space X), Virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence, Self driving cars, Space telescopes, Quantum computers and as you mentioned the ability communicate seamlessly with anyone in the world, the Internet. The list is pretty much endless. BTW I really enjoyed the look of this video. Nicely edited with a good balance of images and your narration. Thanks for the video!
I would recommend Octavia E. Butler. Her parable series is an example of coming through the dystopian to a less bleak future. But I have wondered if a lot of what he sees as the bleakness is the current imposition of politics into al streams of culture. Wherever you sit, those that are sci-fi nerds on bars seem very much on the dystopian flavor of that sub genre, and overall we need to remind people to look beyond that current flavor. Just a thought, thank you.
I think that the Vietnam War also caused the rise in dystopian sci fi. Heinlein's Starship Troopers was published in 1959, which was pretty bleak. I still like Andre Norton for light sci fi... There is a little more optimism in animated films though... with Big Hero Six, I think, being one that I particularly liked - the animation and the sense of loss at a time that I was going through a similar situation in my own life, perhaps skewed my opinion here. The Martian, I think, was extremely interesting... especially given the very strong use of science that could have been glossed over a lot.
hippie riots along with old shows and comics of 1960s-1970s were back to nature hippies so I would have preferred 1930s famine than a 1970s fuel rationing,
As a 62 year-old Sci Fi fan I do see the shift to a more pessimistic and darker element in the genre, but as you pointed out that is simply a progression of sophistication in the realm of ideas which is the basis of good Sci Fi. The prevalence of dystopic stories can be simply chalked up to the idea that 'nothing causes the examination of ideas and concepts more, than when something goes wrong. My own buga-a-bear with Sci-Fi comes when I go book shopping, and see so many simple-minded and formulaic stories. Zombies, hostile AIs and war stories dressed up as space operas and fantasy. Can you get intelligent stories past the publishers anymore without kicking out a wad of your own money to self-publish?
I watched SF die, 1966 thru 1972. I subscribed to Analog, Worlds of If, and Galaxy Magazines. They were great and all now available online. The art, editorials, fan commentary all contributed to magazine driven SF. Mostly short stories, the novels were serialized, then both published as anthologies and novels. The New Wave of the 1950s ushered in plenty of pessimism, Nihilism, Anarchy and such. Cautionary tales were always prevalent, but in a more educational manner. By 1969, the SF environment was inundated with really bizarre stuff. The Bester, Malzberg, Tiptree, Ballard, Delaney, LeGuin, late RAH, etc. crowd was not something anyone wanted. Keith Laumer, Niven, Harrison, etc. tried, but most of the best magazines died very quickly. By 1976. Laumer's stroke in 1971 was a loss to hard SF. In 1970 and before, bookstores had 10 yards of shelves full of SF, the magazines were in drugstores, grocery stores, everywhere. I was just in Barnes and Noble. They have 1/10 the SF a bookstore had 45 years ago. Very sad. I have my own library of the great SF.
@Matti Kuokkanen try ordering Galaxy Magazine. Try going to the Library. Your point may have some validity, but not enough to explain why SF sites have such low numbers. I order books frequently online. Try going to a used bookstore. Their shelves are full of older SF that sells quickly, and the turnover is also fast. Try finding the Classic SF, people are not letting that go easily. You are talking with a guy who has read SF for 60 years. The conventions have virtually disappeared, too. We used to have them in small cities, workshops, authors, etc. SF was big until the mid 70s, somewhat thru early 80s. Asimov's brought back some interest from 1979 thru about 1985.
@Matti Kuokkanen Just FYI, I worked in MIS/IT for 35 years. I knew how to use the internet, back when it was modems and bulletin boards, right thru today! Spend too much time reading old SF!
@@mattikuokkanen I went to great sci-fi bookshops in London (Forbidden Planet), Austin Texas (where I bought Ender’s Game), Madrid and Sydney. There is something about dedicated sci-fi bookshops that is necessary. Also I have a great library in my area. Libraries are repositories of arcane knowledge, and you never know what you’ll find in them. My dad took me to a library when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
@Main Street Same. Libraries are my happy place :). And mine does indeed have "ten yards of shelves" (give or take) of SF&F fiction, as does my largest local bookshop. I also regularly buy classic sci-fi on, for instance, eBay pretty easily (obviously some titles are easier/cheaper to get hold of than others) and have a Forbidden Planet near where I live so OP's depiction of reality just doesn't match the world I live in. (if anything i'd say sci-fi went _mainstream_ but that only equals death if you define the genre by it being in an exclusive gatekept ghetto)
@@anonymes2884 yeah, well, I guess someone has to mention the dirty word - Amazon lol. Seems like I’m turning to them more and more. Tbh I’m not reading sci fi much these days but I’m reading Kurzweil rn. I reread Dune for 6th time last year and wondering what Daryl thinks when he airs his new film and TV channel. But I can pretty much get whatever I want on Amazon but I always check my local bookshop first.
well if we look at movies as well, the year 2000 was always some kind of milestone of hope. the closer we get the more we seen that it wont happen and stories got darker.
I have a copy of the 1951 "GALAXY Reader of Science Fiction". (Anthology of the best stories from the magazine that year). There are some light and even comedic pieces. But also some very dark visions of the future. I don't see that there have been "eras". Writers' imaginations vary, whenever they happen to be born.
I agree that “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary” both provide optimistic viewpoints, even if the latter may be more, for lack of a better term, “fanciful”. I enjoyed that book, and suspect that any nay-sayers were expecting a more "realistic" plot line after reading the former, which I think is unfortunate. I will need to check out “Aurora” Probably the most optimistic work I have recently read is “Entheophage” by Drema Deoraich. It is not the space-bound setting usually found in most science fiction novels, it is more climate-fiction meets medical mystery. I think one reason for the “Golden Era” of Science Fiction being more optimistic is the relatively meager exposure of the populace to so many major issues. That afforded writers the ability to devote much more time and energy addressing developmental, thought provoking and inspiring themes versus having to consider ways to resolve a plethora of spirit-crushing, potentially world-damaging issues. The evolution of thematic scope is well defined by the categorizations in your video, and can clearly be tracked by the popular written works in each era therein. It is still impressive to see how many works from earlier authors like Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert still garner attention today. It will be interesting to see what effect the privatization of space exploration will have on future novels and other media, once that becomes more wide-spread, particularly in the realms of colonization and terraforming, especially with current understanding of long-range environmental effects and planning options.
Love love love your content!! The graphics and delivery style are so wonderful and easy to enjoy. Your episode are like Pokémon, i want to collect them all!
Thanks for this video, I quite agree, especially in regards to films, since the selection is narrower than with books. I am from an older generation and have an optimistic outlook myself and in my work and life. I never had TV, nor cinemas or bookstores in my region so I read many classic and new wave books. I have until recently found it difficult to select books I might like, but a good library and TH-cam, including SciFi Odyssey are helping now. I have read all of PF Hamilton and Iain Banks and also enjoyed Semiosis by Sue Burke, and books of NK Jemison and Becky Chambers. The last mentioned must be a cheerful soul.
I think dystopian SciFi is so overdone. Where’s the trouble-in-paradise SciFi? Where’s the SciFi where technology has created a near-utopia until something happens to disturb its tranquility? Seriously, that wasn’t a rhetorical question.
I broadly agree with where I _think_ the video is coming from in that I doubt the fundamental premise of the question. Aside from anything else, it's deeply flawed reasoning to compare just "golden age" sci-fi (so a 10 ish or _at most_ 20 ish year span either from 1939-50 or 1939-60 - and plenty of fans/critics wouldn't include all of the 50s in "golden age") with _everything_ written afterwards (60+ years and counting) - that's a massively skewed sample set. Then there's the confusion of "bleak" with "nuanced, sometimes dark but still _ultimately_ optimistic". "The Road" for instance is * *mild spoilers follow* * definitely bleak but it's _also_ ultimately hopeful IMO, as is "Station Eleven". "The Stars My Destination" while similarly ultimately hopeful also contains _plenty_ of darkness. So why are the former _not_ "optimistic" but the latter apparently is ? And as the video mentions, if you look (and not very hard), there's plenty of "optimistic" sci-fi around today. Conversely (and maybe more pertinently IMO) there was plenty of less optimistic sci-fi around in the 40s and especially 50s (the post-apocalyptic classic "Earth Abides" is from 1949 for instance, "The Cold Equations" is from 1954 as is "I Am Legend", "Flowers for Algernon" is 1959 etc.). So no, personally I just don't buy the claim that sci-fi used to be optimistic and now isn't.
I totally agree with this assessment. Whilst I think the tone of perceived sci-fi darkness since the 70s is a lot to do with Hollywood and them probably thinking selling less optimistic sci-fi to the populace I can only remember growing up in the 80s, buying the new Arthur C Clarke or Isaac Asimov book when it was released, beginning introduced to other sci-fi authors sometimes through their collaborations, sometimes by other means made me think what is this guy talking about. I found it odd that he cites 2001: A Space Odyssey as an optimistic sci-fi book, which I believe it was, without noting that the Stanley Kubrick movie was very dark in comparison. Yes, there was a golden age when sci-fi was new, but I don't think it just ended in 1950. I agree that there is darker sci-fi from even the golden age, as there was after, and definitely is today, but I think we with all fiction it depends on the author. Dark material sells and as with even the optimistic sci-fi I think a lot of the darker stuff is really just older human based issues at to a space backdrop, I tend to think of it doesn't actually include any science in it, it's just futuristic, that it isn't really sci-fi So to conclude I think sci-fi appears darker and grittier because that is what TV and film execs are feeding us, maybe it's a lot harder to develop more optimistic sci-fi. I'm not even sure what classes as optimistic or dark either. It's The Expanse dark, or is it optimistic? Was the adaptation of Foundation on Apple+ dark? Don't all good stories have their dark moments and their optimistic ones, and what has referring to is dystopian futures, maybe post apocalypse earth scenarios. I think the thing is that in the 50s and 60s people thought anything was possible in terms of space exploration and this was reflected in the literature whereas nowadays we know it's a lot harder and a lot further away than people thought and again this feeds through to what we're getting fed today in all forms of media.
Bit of a shameless self-promotion here, but the overall message of "The Deathworlders" is very optimistic. Despite all the terrible things that happen, the general theme is of resilience and the ability to overcome tremendous hardship to meet the bright future on the far side.
@@adamnesico there are many PEOPLE, not just dreams of machines, who already think better than you or me. They can't stop us from being stupid, or obviate or need to think, so what i said is absolutely correct and not wrong at all. People will always have a need to think for themselves. That's the fact that anti-science writers are horrified by
@@TreeLuvBurdpu yes, yhats why many autoritarians are in awe with the idea of replace people with machines that can’t think by themselves. Or dataists who thinks that machines are better than us.
Are the Three Body Problem, Dark Forest, and Death's End optimistic? At the end of each, I sure felt that way. As in, "Intelligent civilizations can overcome/survive the problems ahead of them!" Now, before the endings, well, there's a lot of pessimism... a lot of existential dread, species ending level dread. A lot of death. And even just the idea of the Dark Forest is pessimistic in the extreme. It feels stifling. * Limitations by physics - expansion of universe and speed of light limits our ability to expand... * The fermi paradox - lack of evidence of other civilizations - do they all just die out quickly? * The dark forest... And then turning inward on ourselves and what we're doing to our home planet. It feels like we have a lot of heavy challenges ahead of us. Also given access to greater amounts of information, it's become more clear that at all levels of society, a lot of people are greedy and short sighted. So does that make the Dark Forest Trilogy an apt reflection our where we are today? Facing down apocalypse in slow motion? Is the Dark Forest Trilogy perhaps too optimistic about any civilizations ability to survive?
Rational realism tells us things are not going to work out at all well. That's the fact. It’s why science fiction has ceased being optimistic about any kind of future. It’s also why horror has become the universal style applied to all genres, as it lets us deal with our terror, our anxiety, our angst. Our bitter resentment of the monsters who have done this to us fuel such fiction. We’re spiraling around the drain, we know it, and we admit it to ourselves when our spilled blood becomes wordsplatter. Superb, cogent overview. Well done.
It's also why we don't work towards making anything better any more. Why should we? According to rational realism there is not hope for anything getting better.
@@Dreamfox-df6bg When, in history, has change in how we do things socially been brought about gradually? Every major change is preceded by rivers of blood, but the thing is the more technology advances the less we can afford to have imperfect systems; there is a greater chance that any battle will lead to our extinction or demise.
Foregone conclusion. Self-fulfilling prophesy? In the US, everything improved continuously thru the mid-1960s. Then not. That corresponds to the literature and attitude of the mass media and a series of disastrous US political and economic policies. Cause and effect? I lived it and think so. Lowered expectations were "expected," by the decision makers.
Then, "rational realism" is neither rational nor realistic. With progress being the default behind us, there is no rational reason to assume destruction only lies ahead. There might be some time of instability ahead because progress is not an external force pushing us untoward the stars. But just people solving problems. We just tend to be pretty good at that. In any way you can empirically demonstrate, you are materially better off than any generation in history. Kings would look on with evny at what I can do with a cell phone. Now I'll grant you our subjective well-being has taken a dive in the last 50 years, but the awnser to that is actually being realistic about the blessings of modern society.
i would like to see a video on if anime has followed a similar trajectory from more positive to more negatives outlooks, cuz i feel like anime sci-fi trends more positive often, although this might be due to just the humor and aesthetics than anything
I have long pondered this shift from optimistic exploration and imagination of the golden age of scifi into darker dystopia and militaristic themes of our present era , neither of which hold my interest, try as I might. The Monk and Robot series was a breath of fresh air and brought hope for a reverse swing of the pendulum. I think it's easier and safer to imagine the worst, and wonder if the spate of dystopia themes is also a bit of laziness that allows dark authors to hide behind plots that, while harder to criticize, offer little daring or true soul searching.
There has always been dystopian SF, especially from British writers. Pessimistic works seem to more often emerge from the minds of those who are not technologically or scientifically trained, so concentrate on social, political, cultural and other more humanistic themes. Stories focusing on a “sense of wonder” where the “idea” is the hero rather than the characters is mostly seen as simplistic and dated, of little appeal to modern readership. The writer and reader demographic has changed enormously over the past several decades, as potential readers find diversion in gaming, especially on-line, where SF world building still flourishes.
Did you really describe The Stars My Destination as 'positive'? The same novel with the main character who murders and s*xually assaults innocent characters? The novel that features a literal underground pitch black prison and spontaneous interplanetary nuclear war? That's one of the bleakest classic SF novels you could've sited.
I dunno, it can certainly be seen to ultimately be a story of redemption that _ends_ on a hopeful note. "Optimistic" or "positive" _doesn't_ mean "nothing bad ever happens". The problem I have with the video's examples is that **spoilers follow** . . . . . . . . . . exactly the same can be said of e.g. "The Road" (i.e. many bleak, dark events but an ultimately hopeful ending) and yet "The Stars..." is apparently optimistic while "The Road" apparently isn't ? Seems entirely subjective basically and so worth as much attention as any sensible person usually pays to the entirely subjective opinions of strangers (i.e. not much :).
Having read The Stars My Destination recently, I'm in agreement with Will P. The main character is odious, and frankly, the writing in the book was pretty atrocious, uneven, jerky, and emotionally unrealistic. And IIRC the main character's "redemption" in the end basically means he still faces no consequences for murder and rape. The book left me with a far worse taste in my mouth than any "dark" SF I've read.
Haha I get your point. While none of those events are "positive" there's an overall sense of optimism about humanity's ability to change course and make better choices for the future. That's what I took away anyway.
I think Arthur C Clark was pretty optimistic, but on the whole, Asimov and Heinlein's works were pretty cynical. Foundation sees progress as leading to unavoidable collapse, with barely any hope of humanity ever recovering. The moon is a harsh mistress treated civil war and vigilantism as aspirational reactions to slavery, and Starship Troopers is pretty clearly satire of a fascist state, but a realistic expectation of a possible future considering some of the political trends of the present day. People also forget about L Ron Hubbard because of his side-track into Scientology, but he was a legit Sci FI writer with a truly dystopian view of humanity as being fundamentally selfish and manipulative. A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) by Walter M. Miller, Jr. offers a pretty clear eyed view of technical and cultural development leading to unavoidable conflict and collapse. I think all of the old scifi authors believed in human progress overall as an aspiration, but they projected continuation of the war, conflict and social upheaval. They were optimistic in the sense that they projected that humans would retain their basic humanity into the distant future, rather than being wiped out by machines or becoming cyborgs, but I think that was largely to keep relatable characters for the reader. Even Heinlein's Friday, an artificial person, had an element of Pinocchio, wanting to be a real boy, which is a recurring element of many scifi works through the present, such as Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" that Blade Runner is based on, and works that follow that premise. But, to your point, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek had a very optimistic vision of the future that has largely become less optimistic. It's interesting to note how that universe has developed.
From my point of view, the rise of grimdark, morally ambiguous storytelling (and this isn't just happening in sci-fi, or books, it's all genres and media, but it is mainly afflicting Western cultures, especially American culture and to an extent all Indo-European and Semitic cultures) is an unmitigated disaster. It removes the hope that we can change things for the better in real life, it obscures the benefits of embracing struggle, danger and suffering, it denies any meaning in life other than humanitarian (which has the severe and possibly totally destructive flaw that a pleasurable existence makes pleasure weaker and pain stronger, while a painful existence makes pleasure stronger and pain weaker), and it obscures the necessity of causing suffering for those doing true evil in order to protect anything from them.
We have also forgotten why we need more positive stories and those 'goody-two-shoe' heroes. Why we need Science Fiction that shows us possible positive outcomes of the future. Sure, it is hard to write, especially as they might be seen as communistic, socialistic (two very bad words in the USA) or anti-capitalistic. People also don't like be shown how easily the world might be fixed. Note the word 'might'. A more positive picture can also be depressing because it might show us that we only live in such squalor because we let it happen. In short less optimistic Science Fiction is less controversial and faces less criticism.
@@adamnesico Yes, 'might be seen as'. Just try to show people something new in that regard without people putting it into one of those 3 boxes. It's fascinating. You sell people the most fantastic of technologies, but try to show them a new type of society, they keep putting it into the old 3 boxes, as if it is impossible to create a new one, even if it is just as fiction.
@@Dreamfox-df6bg everytimeeuropeans had tried to build an utopy they have repeated the old mistakes and made new ones. You have a project? Don’t theorize it, build it. Until that moment, is just a fantasy.
@@adamnesico Mixed. Good stuff in there on screen, but we don't see enough of the civilian life. While I have some ideas how this could work, as long as I don't see it on screen, id didn't happen. While I like the diplomatic approach, I find the lack of system defence disturbing. Especially as system defence ships don't really need a warp drive, so they could have heavily armed warships without FTL capabilities and yet keep their diplomatic approach in everything else. But there we are again at Star Trek's greatest weakness. A lack of coherent World Building.
Ive never felt that "dystopian" is a proper title. Sci-fi EXTRAPOLATES. Thats all. We learn more about human nature, about politics and power...and we discard outdated beliefs . So, the direction of extrapolation changes. "The Hunger Games," for example, was not dystopian but, rather, a fairly reasonable extrapolation. Modern sci-fi may feel darker, but in truth its just more knowledgeable, wiser and more realistic.
There are still optimistic sci-fi literature and films, series but not as much as much as the golden age of optimistic sci-fi in the 1990's. But I'm feeling hopeful and I'm doing my bit with my positive space films, film festival, which includes optimistic sci-fi. Small steps but I'm feeling optimistic. :)
Even up to the 60s, we had the idea that we could always beat the bad guy. Even with the 1950s Bomb Drills at school, there was still a kind of optimism. I never had bomb drills at school. There was no point. Instead many of us were told there wouldn't be a future, that we'd never make it to age 30. At any moment an ICBM carrying enough payload to vapourize several cities at once could be headed our way, and it wasn't coming alone but by the hundreds. Thousands of warheads could be in the sky at any moment. Why are the 80s so weird? Why not. There'd be nobody to remember anyway. Mutually Assured Destruction meant that the war would last 15min and there would be no winners. We all had enough nuclear arsenal in the 80s to wipe out the planet several times over. The existential threat of Climate Change was known, but many of us honestly thought we'd have blown ourselves up _long_ before climate collapse. This wasn't a problem to affect our grandkids. We wouldn't have any. So I think speculative fiction tended towards a kind of group therapy. Embrace the darkness and know that you're not alone in your terror. Even if we escape, it's by the skin of our teeth on colony ships, etc... Even the most optimistic Sci-Fi like _Star Trek_ assumed WW-III had nearly wiped us out. I envy the Golden Age writers in their world of hopeful futures full of shining metal, peaceful exploration, and hope.
Anyone looking for optimistic sci-fi, I've got it: Building New Canaan. It is sequel to The Intrepid Saga and Battle for New Canaan. Good stuff all. Dig in.
I'm currently reading a Sci-Fi book called Delphine Descends by some bloke named, oh, by you. The first 25% was so filled with violence against and between children that I was tempted to give up on it. However, I told myself that it must get better soon. Almost halfway through and I remain optimistic.
While I wouldn't call it full out optimistic story a recent work by LP Magnus called the The Human Entanglement does offer ideas on current technological advancement and the how it MAY lead to a optimistic type future.
The massive productivity gains of last few decades have not been shared with the masses. 99.99% of the massive productivity gains since 1970s have all accrued to top 0.1% . No wonder, people view these things differently today compared to 80-90s
@adamnesico Inequality will always drive resentment. You can become slightly richer, but if a portion of society becomes infinity richer, it's human nature to feel like society isn't fair.
It's easier to emotionally manipulate the audience with dystopian themes, and therefore more marketable. The suffering of others appeals to our lizard brains. Question is, are there any solutions or alternative outcomes to strive for that are being presented as well? Nihilism is easy, and lucrative. Projecting an environment to strive for is hard, and perhaps less lucrative.
bright and cheery is not the same as optimistic. Foundation in itself is a story of optimism. A modern story set in the Foundation universe would focus on the collapse of the Empire and the dark years rather than what comes after.
'Foundation' specifically is maybe not a great example but I agree with the broader point that sci-fi with darker, "not optimistic" events, themes and even endings was _certainly_ being written in the 40s and 50s (e.g. "Earth Abides" is from 1949, "The Cold Equations" is from 1954, "Flowers for Algernon" is from 1959 etc.).
@@waverlyking6045 Yeah, the video (and perhaps the thesis itself ?) oddly ignores _pre_ "golden age" sci-fi perhaps because it's _mostly_ contemporary (e.g. "Frankenstein", "The War of the Worlds" and "The Invisible Man" are all set pretty much in their present day) and so isn't making _any_ claim, optimistic or not, about the _future_ per se ? But "The Time Machine" certainly qualifies.
You must be kidding when calling Aurora optimistic. People were unable to colonise another planet even with unlimited energy (nuclear fusion), 3d-printers manufacturing anything you want, and powerful, friendly AI (quantum computing). Because it's so hard. On the other hand, this novel is darker than Mars trilogy by the same author from 1990s, so the overall grim tendency can be seen.
GhatGPT 6 sees this video and generates a perfect optimistic scifi story that makes a million dollars which gets added to its world domination account.
Pessimistic science fiction has always existed in some manner. During the interbellum Aldous Huxley wrote several such stories, and he's still a household name. And who can mention Brave New World without mentioning 1984, published in 1949? This seems to be more about a public perception of what the bulk of science fiction ought to be. If you would have asked anyone in the time ranging from 1920 to 1960, they would have answered something about rocket ships and juvenile entertainment. Television and film made it go mainstream. Part of the reason why everyone keeps comparing Star Trek and Star Wars is probably the fact that they were the first pieces of science fiction to fully hit the mainstream. And while we're in the 70's, also consider that Mad Max blew away everyone's concept of what science fiction could be, and spawned as many copycats as Star Trek and Star Wars did. The average post-apocalyptic setting is still a dust-blown desert because Mad Max 2 was filmed in Australian and Namibian deserts. I also wouldn't put too much stock in internet connectivity enabling more people to become writers. The biggest barrier is still in place: Language, and following from that, location. Ask people to name one living non-anglophone science fiction writer and they'll probably say Cixin Liu, because he got a very generous boost in the media. Ask them to name two, and they can't do it. Me personally? I couldn't name three, and English is my second language. Though, admittedly, I have trouble naming living science fiction writers in general, because I see a sharp decline in quality after the mid-80's. Instead, I'd put much more stock in information flowing from the writers to the readers than vice versa. Back in the day, you'd find out about Orson Scott Card's Mormonism years after reading his books. Today, you learn such a thing before you've even read them. Similarly the likes of Cixin Liu and John Scalzy get plastered over the internet, the latter especially owing his career to enough websites telling people to read his work. Anyway, the real question is "why did public perception change?" And I think there's a simple answer, or at least a part of it. The 90's were incredibly optimistic in hindsight. You may not have noticed it at the time, what, with the Balkan Wars and everything, but the ever-pervasive threat of nuclear annihilation had been lifted. The free world (which still considered itself that back then) had won. New technology was rapidly transforming the world. Things were going to get better. And then we all collectively decided that, no, things aren't going to get better, there is a new, worse apocalypse looming over the horizon, and deep political divides are a cool thing to have. And when you remember optimistic science fiction, you're probably mostly remembering the 90's.
The rise of nihilism and the sodomite agenda has made most modern sci fi tedious reading. Fortunately there is plenty of vintage pulp out there I haven't yet read.
Huh? "Aurora" isn't about a brighter future for humanity. The whole point of the book is to deconstruct utopian/optimistic sci-fi. Did you not get past like the halfway point?
'Why Isn't Sci-Fi Optimistic Anymo-'. because....there are a Lot of P-GA era-bound Only (Sadly. seriously: the amount of COD:IW, BO3, AW, and even a bit of BO2's Haters out there) type COD players/people out there for example? (anyways) Lore-wise speaking I mean. (though some parts of the Gameplay side of things over there is included on this one short reminding rant review of mine as well, yes that too).
I think it's been monopolistic publishers that cared more a forced agenda - Politically Correct back in the day now Woke or social justice - than any science fiction. Also its slavishly going to a "New thing" and thinking it will replace the old thing and fighting like mad to keep it there. Back in the day it was Adventure with lots of wonder and optimism put in and its like they fought it from day one. I understand, they don't want huge deco cities, giant infrastructure projects or an O'Niel space station; The Koch bros and other elites wanted tons of tax breaks and sci-fi was getting the public to scream for them IRL. Also to be fair, over a while it was all "Westerns in space", "WW2 battles, in space"... The public could NOT get enough of it. More and more and more. However some editors were near suicidal with 1000 "I wanna be the next Francis Knowlan..." half-arsed documents on their desk. One ran off to start his own religion from that era... When the 60s came they were able to push through elements that they didn't dare - oh, yes, fear of censorship and the prudish/paranoid 50s made everything G-rated too. So in comes the "New Wave" think Harlan Ellison with a chainsaw and wearing a duck mask. Alien was brilliant. However the public wanted more star wars, star trek - that's also why the B-movies did so well - the mass media owners wanted to treat it like a fluke but they wanted more and more of the "Space opera" + adventure. For a while the "new wave" was brilliant and as a niche it still is. Like the Deconstructionist period Comic Books had in the mid 80s breaking the "Comics Code" and social stereotypes. But now like comic books they are stagnating with the editors wanting "MOooar Alien and shove in some DeeeeVersity.... Yeah, your token friend from College can't write to save its life? Get a ghost writer then we'll give it an award and let it rant how they hate white males and the patriarchy..." --- Now that was criminally simplistic and NOT "Politically Correct". IMO people WANT optimism, not crude Trekkian vanilla college student communism but heroes fighting bad guys and adventure and sex and fun - not some list of appeasement to what others who'll NEVER buy it want it to be and bland imitation of "The current thang" (Alien) Though I love said niche we are also already entering the Sci-Fi dystopia of "Cyberpunk". We need heroic adventures in other realms or space adventures in a world we'd want to live in. Not whining "Durn Kumpany, we'z expendable" Alien nihilism rip off #1323023... with token rainbow colored snowflake sentiment sprinkled in and "Written" by a snarling hateful person chosen for "Diversity" points with ZERO talent using a ghost writer who'll then be fashionably radical and write something about AiArt/AiWriting as if its a bad thing.
I'm not sure why sci-fi and fantasy authors are writing so much " Downer, Doom and Gloom " stories these days ! However, one reason I think " Dystopian and Dysfunctional " stories are so popular is that maybe the writers are younger and pessimistic ! These newer writers and alot of them are from China surprisingly have been through economic collapses and a greatly diminished job market for 1,000s of fresh University graduates, they see corruption within their government, and see society and nature falling apart ! Pollution is accelerating, and some don't see much of a future ; pandemic fears and wars haven't stopped either. I think if there was less chaos , these writers might be more optimistic. We shall which wins .
Most adults today remember the world as it was before: an objectively a better place. Most authors are, unsurprisingly, just following that downward projection.
@@ThreeRunHomer This. Anyone who thinks the past was objectively better is probably a white male, a group that's traditionally had to worry much less about, y'know, being enslaved, colonised or forbidden access to education, voting etc. In fact by most _actually_ objective measures (levels of poverty, literacy, infant mortality, life expectancy etc.) the past was, on average, substantially worse.
Well, their memory sucks then. Because it objectively wasn't. Subjectivity and in some places might be better, but if 1950s American was better than now, 1950s Korea wasn't. And you'd be really hard pressed to say the first part of that is true in any case.
Because the internet has shown us how terrible human beings really are. Even if we reach a post-scarcity society in the future, that post-scarcity society will only be for the rich. We're basically doomed because we're too selfish and apathetic.
While I think the answer to this question is pretty clear (the future looks less rosy than it used to), it still annoys me that I can't read some sci-fi that isn't pessimistic. Fine, the world is f***ed. Can we focus on something else please.
@@frankie3010 The future people see is the path from our current, we can change path, but it means we have to take that action, though people can legit just not see the paths properly and think we are on the path to self destruction, when we might be on our way to the greatest moment in humanity.
@@frankie3010 Yes, but the present has been continually getting worse, and we need a reason to believe that will change and reverse course, at some point.
Quite frankly, I hate modern scifi. Everything is dystopian post apocalyptic war/climate disaster anticapitalistic mankind sucks gloom and doom horseshit these days. "After mankind destroyed the Earth in a war fought over resources made scarce by the ruination of the climate due to greed, man set out for the stars in the last remaining ship. But the crew all went psychotic and gutted each other. The AI running the ship said 'See there? Told you so' " Run credits.
KSR's Aurora is NOT optimistic, the point is that we should never try to conquer other worlds, that we are not up to the challenge... It marked the end of the author to me, specially when compared to the Mars Trilogy; after that, everything he writes seems to me politically charged, cynical and simplistic.
The Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers is an example of modern SF that exudes an optimistic future for humanity.
I’ve been inspired by Ian Banks. Over the past 5 or so years I’ve been reading and re-reading the culture novels and really picking apart what made them work so damn well… all to the effect of trying my own hand at science fiction with a positive slant.
I think stories with such outlooks will become extremely pertinent as our technological march forward continues, especially with such things as AI.
It's not technically scifi, but Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur covers ALL the subjects that scifi covers, and he refuses to get grimdark about it. In fact, he's where I learned about Warhammer, because whenever he discussed a particular treacherous paradigm, he'd usually say, don't worry, it'll be alright, this isn't Warhammer.
Realistically speaking life is full of both good and bad moments. Thus it's best to have a more moderate view of the future.
I also follow Isaac Arthur's channel. And it's incredible how he demonstrates that, although the world is not a Utopia, the future does not necessarily need to be pessimistic. That there are countless scientifically realistic and plausible solutions to various problems addressed by science fiction.
I second supporting Isaac Arthur haha
Warhammer was built specifically as a tabletop wargame so its makes sense that it would go down the dark constant war route. Its ridiculous on purpose
Also can’t ignore that SciFi used to be marketed mostly a young men and boys, essentially slightly above comic book age. Since around 1970, SciFi has become literary. It used to be that there were no serious, quality SciFi movies u til 2001 came out and the world saw what was possible. Same thing w books. They used to be more “gee whiz” sort of things, until they weren’t. Now they are literary with some, like The Handmaid’s Tale and The Road, being included as fine literature in some canons.
Jules Verne was sci-fi in the 1800s. John Campbell did hard sci-fi in the 1930s. It ebbs and flows with more general cultural tends. Look what's happened to art.
Verne was Steam Punk so real culprit was how GI Bill and other social programs dumped too many unproductive social science and humanities majors who could not get jobs so go read "Offspring of Empire" by Eckert Carter of how they quote cold fusion pioneer Noguchi on how "Social agitators had infiltrated universities hostile to real engineering".
The most pessimistic sci fi story I ever read was Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. Seems like we’re heading in that direction.
I doubt it. No way can an AI do half the shit AM did in that book.
That short story has stayed with me. Truly bleak.
@@frankie3010 not yet anyway 🤔
AM is an AGI. We're not remotely close to being able to produce one of those.
@@frankie3010 why are you judging the future of ai based on today ai? it's almost like everyone iq dropped by 70
"What happened to optimistic Sci-Fi?"
Yeah, I'm still working on it. Sorry. Will take a while.
Great video, Darrel. Such an interesting topic. HG Wells is often classified as a "utopian" science fiction writer, yet he also explored dystopian themes, such as in The Time Machine and When the Sleeper Wakes, while even in bleak dystopias, like Nineteen Eighty-Four, there are the occasional (fleeting) glimpses of a utopia. It is always fun to spot the hidden utopia in a dystopia and the hidden dystopia in a utopia. Well, I think so anyway!
"The Incredibles" was technologically optimistic. That's about it in the last 10 years. And "The Martian"
The Matian is more neutral than anything else
Most if not all literature is a reflection and/or reaction to current developments in society, sci-fi is no exception
I just finished reading Ivanhoe and found its traditional style and outcome pleasant and fulfilling. Prophets of doom be damned 🌞
It's perfectly fine if you prefer positive, hopeful and highly unlikely sci-fi. It's also fine if you prefer sci-fi that is more grounded in our current understanding of human nature, power and politics...and, therefore, more "realistic."
I see it in the sci-fi shorts on the DUST channel. They are relentlessly dour and humourless. To the point where the story becomes entirely predictable because the ending is a foregone conclusion. It's going to end badly for all involved. Perhaps part of the problem is that many sci-fi writers take themselves, and their genre, way too seriously...
Just like the Neverending Story, Optimistic Sci-fi is like Fantasia getting grim darkened by the Nothing.
Still had to laugh in the moon is a harsh mistress that they expected land lines in everything including space suits.
The solar punk subgenre is optimistic and a rejection of dystopian futures.
I'll be looking that up. Do you have suggestions?
@@1edwood79 I only recently got into it, but I can recommend A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers and Walkaway by Cory Doctorow.
@@ThreeRunHomer Thanks. I just got a copy of A Psalm for the Wild Built. Haven't started it yet. Doctorow is always on my radar. After reading up on it I think a few Bruce Sterling novels and short stories qualify.
Islands in the Net is one example by Sterling. It's from 1988 but seems to fit the bill. Won the John W. Campbell, and was nominated for a Hugo and Locus that year. I haven't read it since, but I still think about it in reference to current events and tech. I may have to dig it out.
Solar punk? Humans living in space?
Thats not gonna happen, unless in 🍩 ships.
I grew up in the age of Heinlein's series, Methuselah's Children, Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love. They all showed, in spite of the troubles we could move on and be better people. Now days it is all about anger, hatred and any ideas of love, family and patriotism are foolish.
Anne Leckie and Ada Palmer have taken Sci Fi in new genre cliché subverting / shattering directions. What do you think?
Much of the scifi I have read in recent years have both optimism and pessimism in them. The Intrepid Saga by M. D. Cooper is a good example of this: Solar system is plagued by corruption, decay, and terrorism, and interstellar colony ship Intrepid set out towards more positive future. Definitely some optimism and pessimism in this novel trilogy, and both are given plenty of pages.
Right. And that mixture, when done well, is otherwise known as complexity or nuance. Reality usually isn't all one thing (whether entirely optimistic or entirely bleak) so it makes sense that fiction which is aiming for plausibility and emotional resonance isn't either.
I think maybe some people miss the simple escapism they got from sci-fi as kids (even sci-fi that depicted dark events) and are mixing up the fact that their reading experience is rarely like that anymore (because they got older) with sci-fi having become uniformly bleak.
The cynical genius illusion. Pessimistic things seem more real than optimistic things. Even if the Pessimistic take is objectively wrong.
Great vid
I do think that there needs to be a clearer distinction between speculative fiction and sci-fi. I like my sci-fi books to have at least one spaceship journey in them.
The aliens, inter-planet travel , flying cars, and what not. were predictions of 20th century, and they were as somewhere between fairy tales and horror stories.
Sci-fi reflects the times they are written.
Wrell, there are days that I truly miss uplifting TV shows like the Space Family Robinson, the original Star Trek or Space 1999. But then: robotic space exploration is doing great (the Solar System more or less mapped), we have two orbital space stations (one Chinese) in operation and manned lunar exploration is again on the horizon. So no reason at all for pessimism!
Pretty much agree with all of your comments. All I can add is that alot of what was sci-fi back in the 1930's -50's has now become reality. This provides authors new ways of interpreting these themes, usually in a negative way. When something is no longer fantastical and becomes part of everyday life it often becomes less exciting and less appealing. Examples would be. Rockets that land themselves (Space X), Virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence, Self driving cars, Space telescopes, Quantum computers and as you mentioned the ability communicate seamlessly with anyone in the world, the Internet. The list is pretty much endless. BTW I really enjoyed the look of this video. Nicely edited with a good balance of images and your narration. Thanks for the video!
Great video! And good luck on your own sci-fi books!
Thanks 😊
I would recommend Octavia E. Butler. Her parable series is an example of coming through the dystopian to a less bleak future. But I have wondered if a lot of what he sees as the bleakness is the current imposition of politics into al streams of culture. Wherever you sit, those that are sci-fi nerds on bars seem very much on the dystopian flavor of that sub genre, and overall we need to remind people to look beyond that current flavor. Just a thought, thank you.
I think that the Vietnam War also caused the rise in dystopian sci fi. Heinlein's Starship Troopers was published in 1959, which was pretty bleak.
I still like Andre Norton for light sci fi...
There is a little more optimism in animated films though... with Big Hero Six, I think, being one that I particularly liked - the animation and the sense of loss at a time that I was going through a similar situation in my own life, perhaps skewed my opinion here.
The Martian, I think, was extremely interesting... especially given the very strong use of science that could have been glossed over a lot.
hippie riots along with old shows and comics of 1960s-1970s were back to nature hippies so I would have preferred 1930s famine than a 1970s fuel rationing,
As a 62 year-old Sci Fi fan I do see the shift to a more pessimistic and darker element in the genre, but as you pointed out that is simply a progression of sophistication in the realm of ideas which is the basis of good Sci Fi. The prevalence of dystopic stories can be simply chalked up to the idea that 'nothing causes the examination of ideas and concepts more, than when something goes wrong.
My own buga-a-bear with Sci-Fi comes when I go book shopping, and see so many simple-minded and formulaic stories. Zombies, hostile AIs and war stories dressed up as space operas and fantasy. Can you get intelligent stories past the publishers anymore without kicking out a wad of your own money to self-publish?
I watched SF die, 1966 thru 1972. I subscribed to Analog, Worlds of If, and Galaxy Magazines. They were great and all now available online. The art, editorials, fan commentary all contributed to magazine driven SF. Mostly short stories, the novels were serialized, then both published as anthologies and novels.
The New Wave of the 1950s ushered in plenty of pessimism, Nihilism, Anarchy and such. Cautionary tales were always prevalent, but in a more educational manner.
By 1969, the SF environment was inundated with really bizarre stuff. The Bester, Malzberg, Tiptree, Ballard, Delaney, LeGuin, late RAH, etc. crowd was not something anyone wanted.
Keith Laumer, Niven, Harrison, etc. tried, but most of the best magazines died very quickly. By 1976. Laumer's stroke in 1971 was a loss to hard SF.
In 1970 and before, bookstores had 10 yards of shelves full of SF, the magazines were in drugstores, grocery stores, everywhere.
I was just in Barnes and Noble. They have 1/10 the SF a bookstore had 45 years ago. Very sad. I have my own library of the great SF.
@Matti Kuokkanen try ordering Galaxy Magazine. Try going to the Library.
Your point may have some validity, but not enough to explain why SF sites have such low numbers. I order books frequently online. Try going to a used bookstore. Their shelves are full of older SF that sells quickly, and the turnover is also fast. Try finding the Classic SF, people are not letting that go easily. You are talking with a guy who has read SF for 60 years. The conventions have virtually disappeared, too. We used to have them in small cities, workshops, authors, etc.
SF was big until the mid 70s, somewhat thru early 80s. Asimov's brought back some interest from 1979 thru about 1985.
@Matti Kuokkanen Just FYI, I worked in MIS/IT for 35 years. I knew how to use the internet, back when it was modems and bulletin boards, right thru today! Spend too much time reading old SF!
@@mattikuokkanen I went to great sci-fi bookshops in London (Forbidden Planet), Austin Texas (where I bought Ender’s Game), Madrid and Sydney. There is something about dedicated sci-fi bookshops that is necessary. Also I have a great library in my area. Libraries are repositories of arcane knowledge, and you never know what you’ll find in them. My dad took me to a library when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
@Main Street Same. Libraries are my happy place :). And mine does indeed have "ten yards of shelves" (give or take) of SF&F fiction, as does my largest local bookshop.
I also regularly buy classic sci-fi on, for instance, eBay pretty easily (obviously some titles are easier/cheaper to get hold of than others) and have a Forbidden Planet near where I live so OP's depiction of reality just doesn't match the world I live in.
(if anything i'd say sci-fi went _mainstream_ but that only equals death if you define the genre by it being in an exclusive gatekept ghetto)
@@anonymes2884 yeah, well, I guess someone has to mention the dirty word - Amazon lol. Seems like I’m turning to them more and more.
Tbh I’m not reading sci fi much these days but I’m reading Kurzweil rn. I reread Dune for 6th time last year and wondering what Daryl thinks when he airs his new film and TV channel.
But I can pretty much get whatever I want on Amazon but I always check my local bookshop first.
Aurora by KSR was another dour ending. "Don't even try a generation ship," Made me start to write, and optimistic stories.
The Culture series by Iain Banks is optimistic. But tough.
Ronald Moore and the brilliant BSG reboot marked a significant change in tone. See SGU, eyeballs being removed on screen in Picard, etc.
Dystopia is the sci fi equivalent of heavy metal. Megadeth made an album called Dystopia
So did Iced Earth.
well if we look at movies as well, the year 2000 was always some kind of milestone of hope. the closer we get the more we seen that it wont happen and stories got darker.
I have a copy of the 1951 "GALAXY Reader of Science Fiction". (Anthology of the best stories from the magazine that year). There are some light and even comedic pieces. But also some very dark visions of the future. I don't see that there have been "eras". Writers' imaginations vary, whenever they happen to be born.
I agree that “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary” both provide optimistic viewpoints, even if the latter may be more, for lack of a better term, “fanciful”. I enjoyed that book, and suspect that any nay-sayers were expecting a more "realistic" plot line after reading the former, which I think is unfortunate.
I will need to check out “Aurora”
Probably the most optimistic work I have recently read is “Entheophage” by Drema Deoraich. It is not the space-bound setting usually found in most science fiction novels, it is more climate-fiction meets medical mystery.
I think one reason for the “Golden Era” of Science Fiction being more optimistic is the relatively meager exposure of the populace to so many major issues. That afforded writers the ability to devote much more time and energy addressing developmental, thought provoking and inspiring themes versus having to consider ways to resolve a plethora of spirit-crushing, potentially world-damaging issues.
The evolution of thematic scope is well defined by the categorizations in your video, and can clearly be tracked by the popular written works in each era therein.
It is still impressive to see how many works from earlier authors like Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert still garner attention today.
It will be interesting to see what effect the privatization of space exploration will have on future novels and other media, once that becomes more wide-spread, particularly in the realms of colonization and terraforming, especially with current understanding of long-range environmental effects and planning options.
Colonization and terraforming?
Human pregnancy can’t develop without Earths gravity.
That was very educational I never really thought of why sci-fi changed so much but I really enjoy you vids thanks
Same reason "the Hound" gave when asked why he was always so grumpy and mean all the time...."Experience".
Slaves of the switchboard of doom is a neat wee sci fi that has a pleasant ending. ….
I hope you'll hit 20,000 subs very soon. I've been here since before you reached 10k. 🙂❤
Thank you.
@@Sci-FiOdyssey
You're welcome! 🙂
Love love love your content!! The graphics and delivery style are so wonderful and easy to enjoy. Your episode are like Pokémon, i want to collect them all!
Children of Time is rather optimistic in my view. Sure it started with an unpleasant circumstances for humanity but it ended on a positive note.
Thanks for this video, I quite agree, especially in regards to films, since the selection is narrower than with books. I am from an older generation and have an optimistic outlook myself and in my work and life. I never had TV, nor cinemas or bookstores in my region so I read many classic and new wave books. I have until recently found it difficult to select books I might like, but a good library and TH-cam, including SciFi Odyssey are helping now. I have read all of PF Hamilton and Iain Banks and also enjoyed Semiosis by Sue Burke, and books of NK Jemison and Becky Chambers. The last mentioned must be a cheerful soul.
I think dystopian SciFi is so overdone. Where’s the trouble-in-paradise SciFi? Where’s the SciFi where technology has created a near-utopia until something happens to disturb its tranquility? Seriously, that wasn’t a rhetorical question.
I broadly agree with where I _think_ the video is coming from in that I doubt the fundamental premise of the question. Aside from anything else, it's deeply flawed reasoning to compare just "golden age" sci-fi (so a 10 ish or _at most_ 20 ish year span either from 1939-50 or 1939-60 - and plenty of fans/critics wouldn't include all of the 50s in "golden age") with _everything_ written afterwards (60+ years and counting) - that's a massively skewed sample set.
Then there's the confusion of "bleak" with "nuanced, sometimes dark but still _ultimately_ optimistic". "The Road" for instance is * *mild spoilers follow* * definitely bleak but it's _also_ ultimately hopeful IMO, as is "Station Eleven". "The Stars My Destination" while similarly ultimately hopeful also contains _plenty_ of darkness. So why are the former _not_ "optimistic" but the latter apparently is ?
And as the video mentions, if you look (and not very hard), there's plenty of "optimistic" sci-fi around today. Conversely (and maybe more pertinently IMO) there was plenty of less optimistic sci-fi around in the 40s and especially 50s (the post-apocalyptic classic "Earth Abides" is from 1949 for instance, "The Cold Equations" is from 1954 as is "I Am Legend", "Flowers for Algernon" is 1959 etc.).
So no, personally I just don't buy the claim that sci-fi used to be optimistic and now isn't.
I totally agree with this assessment. Whilst I think the tone of perceived sci-fi darkness since the 70s is a lot to do with Hollywood and them probably thinking selling less optimistic sci-fi to the populace I can only remember growing up in the 80s, buying the new Arthur C Clarke or Isaac Asimov book when it was released, beginning introduced to other sci-fi authors sometimes through their collaborations, sometimes by other means made me think what is this guy talking about. I found it odd that he cites 2001: A Space Odyssey as an optimistic sci-fi book, which I believe it was, without noting that the Stanley Kubrick movie was very dark in comparison.
Yes, there was a golden age when sci-fi was new, but I don't think it just ended in 1950. I agree that there is darker sci-fi from even the golden age, as there was after, and definitely is today, but I think we with all fiction it depends on the author. Dark material sells and as with even the optimistic sci-fi I think a lot of the darker stuff is really just older human based issues at to a space backdrop, I tend to think of it doesn't actually include any science in it, it's just futuristic, that it isn't really sci-fi
So to conclude I think sci-fi appears darker and grittier because that is what TV and film execs are feeding us, maybe it's a lot harder to develop more optimistic sci-fi. I'm not even sure what classes as optimistic or dark either. It's The Expanse dark, or is it optimistic? Was the adaptation of Foundation on Apple+ dark? Don't all good stories have their dark moments and their optimistic ones, and what has referring to is dystopian futures, maybe post apocalypse earth scenarios.
I think the thing is that in the 50s and 60s people thought anything was possible in terms of space exploration and this was reflected in the literature whereas nowadays we know it's a lot harder and a lot further away than people thought and again this feeds through to what we're getting fed today in all forms of media.
Bit of a shameless self-promotion here, but the overall message of "The Deathworlders" is very optimistic. Despite all the terrible things that happen, the general theme is of resilience and the ability to overcome tremendous hardship to meet the bright future on the far side.
Grant Morrison said in "Supergods", "the stories we tell ourselves often end up becoming the stories we live."
The collective message of SF so far is that science CAN not save us from ourselves.
It can if we start dit ourselves.
But seems that 🇺🇸 prefers robots to people.
More accurately, if we choose to be stupid, science and technology can't force us to be smart. No one can make a machine that makes thinking obsolete.
@@TreeLuvBurdpu Thats wrong, in fact many dream of machines who can think better than us.
@@adamnesico there are many PEOPLE, not just dreams of machines, who already think better than you or me. They can't stop us from being stupid, or obviate or need to think, so what i said is absolutely correct and not wrong at all. People will always have a need to think for themselves. That's the fact that anti-science writers are horrified by
@@TreeLuvBurdpu yes, yhats why many autoritarians are in awe with the idea of replace people with machines that can’t think by themselves.
Or dataists who thinks that machines are better than us.
Honestly, I think it's time Sci-Fi got back to it's optimistic roots. :D
Are the Three Body Problem, Dark Forest, and Death's End optimistic?
At the end of each, I sure felt that way. As in, "Intelligent civilizations can overcome/survive the problems ahead of them!"
Now, before the endings, well, there's a lot of pessimism... a lot of existential dread, species ending level dread. A lot of death.
And even just the idea of the Dark Forest is pessimistic in the extreme. It feels stifling.
* Limitations by physics - expansion of universe and speed of light limits our ability to expand...
* The fermi paradox - lack of evidence of other civilizations - do they all just die out quickly?
* The dark forest...
And then turning inward on ourselves and what we're doing to our home planet. It feels like we have a lot of heavy challenges ahead of us.
Also given access to greater amounts of information, it's become more clear that at all levels of society, a lot of people are greedy and short sighted.
So does that make the Dark Forest Trilogy an apt reflection our where we are today? Facing down apocalypse in slow motion?
Is the Dark Forest Trilogy perhaps too optimistic about any civilizations ability to survive?
Rational realism tells us things are not going to work out at all well. That's the fact.
It’s why science fiction has ceased being optimistic about any kind of future.
It’s also why horror has become the universal style applied to all genres, as it lets us deal with our terror, our anxiety, our angst. Our bitter resentment of the monsters who have done this to us fuel such fiction.
We’re spiraling around the drain, we know it, and we admit it to ourselves when our spilled blood becomes wordsplatter.
Superb, cogent overview. Well done.
It's also why we don't work towards making anything better any more. Why should we? According to rational realism there is not hope for anything getting better.
@@Dreamfox-df6bg When, in history, has change in how we do things socially been brought about gradually? Every major change is preceded by rivers of blood, but the thing is the more technology advances the less we can afford to have imperfect systems; there is a greater chance that any battle will lead to our extinction or demise.
Foregone conclusion. Self-fulfilling prophesy?
In the US, everything improved continuously thru the mid-1960s.
Then not. That corresponds to the literature and attitude of the mass media and a series of disastrous US political and economic policies.
Cause and effect? I lived it and think so. Lowered expectations were "expected," by the decision makers.
Then, "rational realism" is neither rational nor realistic. With progress being the default behind us, there is no rational reason to assume destruction only lies ahead. There might be some time of instability ahead because progress is not an external force pushing us untoward the stars. But just people solving problems. We just tend to be pretty good at that.
In any way you can empirically demonstrate, you are materially better off than any generation in history. Kings would look on with evny at what I can do with a cell phone. Now I'll grant you our subjective well-being has taken a dive in the last 50 years, but the awnser to that is actually being realistic about the blessings of modern society.
i would like to see a video on if anime has followed a similar trajectory from more positive to more negatives outlooks, cuz i feel like anime sci-fi trends more positive often, although this might be due to just the humor and aesthetics than anything
Impressive, Darrel. Much to think about. I have to come back later. 🧐
I have long pondered this shift from optimistic exploration and imagination of the golden age of scifi into darker dystopia and militaristic themes of our present era , neither of which hold my interest, try as I might. The Monk and Robot series was a breath of fresh air and brought hope for a reverse swing of the pendulum. I think it's easier and safer to imagine the worst, and wonder if the spate of dystopia themes is also a bit of laziness that allows dark authors to hide behind plots that, while harder to criticize, offer little daring or true soul searching.
There has always been dystopian SF, especially from British writers. Pessimistic works seem to more often emerge from the minds of those who are not technologically or scientifically trained, so concentrate on social, political, cultural and other more humanistic themes. Stories focusing on a “sense of wonder” where the “idea” is the hero rather than the characters is mostly seen as simplistic and dated, of little appeal to modern readership. The writer and reader demographic has changed enormously over the past several decades, as potential readers find diversion in gaming, especially on-line, where SF world building still flourishes.
Did you really describe The Stars My Destination as 'positive'? The same novel with the main character who murders and s*xually assaults innocent characters? The novel that features a literal underground pitch black prison and spontaneous interplanetary nuclear war? That's one of the bleakest classic SF novels you could've sited.
I dunno, it can certainly be seen to ultimately be a story of redemption that _ends_ on a hopeful note. "Optimistic" or "positive" _doesn't_ mean "nothing bad ever happens".
The problem I have with the video's examples is that **spoilers follow**
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exactly the same can be said of e.g. "The Road" (i.e. many bleak, dark events but an ultimately hopeful ending) and yet "The Stars..." is apparently optimistic while "The Road" apparently isn't ? Seems entirely subjective basically and so worth as much attention as any sensible person usually pays to the entirely subjective opinions of strangers (i.e. not much :).
Having read The Stars My Destination recently, I'm in agreement with Will P. The main character is odious, and frankly, the writing in the book was pretty atrocious, uneven, jerky, and emotionally unrealistic. And IIRC the main character's "redemption" in the end basically means he still faces no consequences for murder and rape. The book left me with a far worse taste in my mouth than any "dark" SF I've read.
Haha I get your point. While none of those events are "positive" there's an overall sense of optimism about humanity's ability to change course and make better choices for the future. That's what I took away anyway.
I think Arthur C Clark was pretty optimistic, but on the whole, Asimov and Heinlein's works were pretty cynical. Foundation sees progress as leading to unavoidable collapse, with barely any hope of humanity ever recovering. The moon is a harsh mistress treated civil war and vigilantism as aspirational reactions to slavery, and Starship Troopers is pretty clearly satire of a fascist state, but a realistic expectation of a possible future considering some of the political trends of the present day. People also forget about L Ron Hubbard because of his side-track into Scientology, but he was a legit Sci FI writer with a truly dystopian view of humanity as being fundamentally selfish and manipulative. A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) by Walter M. Miller, Jr. offers a pretty clear eyed view of technical and cultural development leading to unavoidable conflict and collapse. I think all of the old scifi authors believed in human progress overall as an aspiration, but they projected continuation of the war, conflict and social upheaval. They were optimistic in the sense that they projected that humans would retain their basic humanity into the distant future, rather than being wiped out by machines or becoming cyborgs, but I think that was largely to keep relatable characters for the reader. Even Heinlein's Friday, an artificial person, had an element of Pinocchio, wanting to be a real boy, which is a recurring element of many scifi works through the present, such as Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" that Blade Runner is based on, and works that follow that premise.
But, to your point, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek had a very optimistic vision of the future that has largely become less optimistic. It's interesting to note how that universe has developed.
Thanx for your insight and video!
From my point of view, the rise of grimdark, morally ambiguous storytelling (and this isn't just happening in sci-fi, or books, it's all genres and media, but it is mainly afflicting Western cultures, especially American culture and to an extent all Indo-European and Semitic cultures) is an unmitigated disaster. It removes the hope that we can change things for the better in real life, it obscures the benefits of embracing struggle, danger and suffering, it denies any meaning in life other than humanitarian (which has the severe and possibly totally destructive flaw that a pleasurable existence makes pleasure weaker and pain stronger, while a painful existence makes pleasure stronger and pain weaker), and it obscures the necessity of causing suffering for those doing true evil in order to protect anything from them.
We have also forgotten why we need more positive stories and those 'goody-two-shoe' heroes. Why we need Science Fiction that shows us possible positive outcomes of the future.
Sure, it is hard to write, especially as they might be seen as communistic, socialistic (two very bad words in the USA) or anti-capitalistic. People also don't like be shown how easily the world might be fixed. Note the word 'might'. A more positive picture can also be depressing because it might show us that we only live in such squalor because we let it happen.
In short less optimistic Science Fiction is less controversial and faces less criticism.
Might?
The socialist dream wiuld requirea level of honesty humans cant achieve.
In the end, is a paradise as imaginary as the christian.
@@adamnesico Yes, 'might be seen as'. Just try to show people something new in that regard without people putting it into one of those 3 boxes.
It's fascinating. You sell people the most fantastic of technologies, but try to show them a new type of society, they keep putting it into the old 3 boxes, as if it is impossible to create a new one, even if it is just as fiction.
@@Dreamfox-df6bg everytimeeuropeans had tried to build an utopy they have repeated the old mistakes and made new ones.
You have a project?
Don’t theorize it, build it.
Until that moment, is just a fantasy.
@@Dreamfox-df6bg for certain what do you think about the star trek ideology?
@@adamnesico Mixed. Good stuff in there on screen, but we don't see enough of the civilian life. While I have some ideas how this could work, as long as I don't see it on screen, id didn't happen.
While I like the diplomatic approach, I find the lack of system defence disturbing. Especially as system defence ships don't really need a warp drive, so they could have heavily armed warships without FTL capabilities and yet keep their diplomatic approach in everything else.
But there we are again at Star Trek's greatest weakness. A lack of coherent World Building.
I can definitely see the dark and dystopian influence of SpongeBob SquarePants in Black Milk. 🍍
Ha! Yes, Black Milk does little to move away from pessimism... well, maybe at the end. Delphine Descends unapologetically does nothing at all.
Ive never felt that "dystopian" is a proper title. Sci-fi EXTRAPOLATES. Thats all. We learn more about human nature, about politics and power...and we discard outdated beliefs . So, the direction of extrapolation changes. "The Hunger Games," for example, was not dystopian but, rather, a fairly reasonable extrapolation. Modern sci-fi may feel darker, but in truth its just more knowledgeable, wiser and more realistic.
There are still optimistic sci-fi literature and films, series but not as much as much as the golden age of optimistic sci-fi in the 1990's. But I'm feeling hopeful and I'm doing my bit with my positive space films, film festival, which includes optimistic sci-fi. Small steps but I'm feeling optimistic. :)
Even up to the 60s, we had the idea that we could always beat the bad guy. Even with the 1950s Bomb Drills at school, there was still a kind of optimism.
I never had bomb drills at school. There was no point. Instead many of us were told there wouldn't be a future, that we'd never make it to age 30. At any moment an ICBM carrying enough payload to vapourize several cities at once could be headed our way, and it wasn't coming alone but by the hundreds. Thousands of warheads could be in the sky at any moment.
Why are the 80s so weird? Why not. There'd be nobody to remember anyway. Mutually Assured Destruction meant that the war would last 15min and there would be no winners. We all had enough nuclear arsenal in the 80s to wipe out the planet several times over.
The existential threat of Climate Change was known, but many of us honestly thought we'd have blown ourselves up _long_ before climate collapse. This wasn't a problem to affect our grandkids. We wouldn't have any.
So I think speculative fiction tended towards a kind of group therapy. Embrace the darkness and know that you're not alone in your terror. Even if we escape, it's by the skin of our teeth on colony ships, etc...
Even the most optimistic Sci-Fi like _Star Trek_ assumed WW-III had nearly wiped us out.
I envy the Golden Age writers in their world of hopeful futures full of shining metal, peaceful exploration, and hope.
Anyone looking for optimistic sci-fi, I've got it: Building New Canaan. It is sequel to The Intrepid Saga and Battle for New Canaan. Good stuff all. Dig in.
I'm currently reading a Sci-Fi book called Delphine Descends by some bloke named, oh, by you. The first 25% was so filled with violence against and between children that I was tempted to give up on it. However, I told myself that it must get better soon. Almost halfway through and I remain optimistic.
🤣🤣🤣 hmmm I’d like to say it gets less brutal… 😅
Assumedly because we know better.
While I wouldn't call it full out optimistic story a recent work by LP Magnus called the The Human Entanglement does offer ideas on current technological advancement and the how it MAY lead to a optimistic type future.
The massive productivity gains of last few decades have not been shared with the masses. 99.99% of the massive productivity gains since 1970s have all accrued to top 0.1% . No wonder, people view these things differently today compared to 80-90s
Not true.
Now obesity is more common than hunger.
@@adamnesico you speak as if obesity comes from nutritious meals, that obesity signifies fulfilling lives, that isn’t the case.
@@sisyphus_strives5463 i dont know where u got such prejudices that i never mentioned
@adamnesico Inequality will always drive resentment. You can become slightly richer, but if a portion of society becomes infinity richer, it's human nature to feel like society isn't fair.
It's easier to emotionally manipulate the audience with dystopian themes, and therefore more marketable. The suffering of others appeals to our lizard brains. Question is, are there any solutions or alternative outcomes to strive for that are being presented as well? Nihilism is easy, and lucrative. Projecting an environment to strive for is hard, and perhaps less lucrative.
I remember all the "after the bomb" books and movies.
I suppose the ecological and climate stuff took its place.
its like the news, people notice negatives more
SciFi has not been bright and cheery all the way back to Foundation
bright and cheery is not the same as optimistic. Foundation in itself is a story of optimism. A modern story set in the Foundation universe would focus on the collapse of the Empire and the dark years rather than what comes after.
'Foundation' specifically is maybe not a great example but I agree with the broader point that sci-fi with darker, "not optimistic" events, themes and even endings was _certainly_ being written in the 40s and 50s (e.g. "Earth Abides" is from 1949, "The Cold Equations" is from 1954, "Flowers for Algernon" is from 1959 etc.).
@@waverlyking6045 Yeah, the video (and perhaps the thesis itself ?) oddly ignores _pre_ "golden age" sci-fi perhaps because it's _mostly_ contemporary (e.g. "Frankenstein", "The War of the Worlds" and "The Invisible Man" are all set pretty much in their present day) and so isn't making _any_ claim, optimistic or not, about the _future_ per se ?
But "The Time Machine" certainly qualifies.
Most sci-fi comes from the USA and the USA is a country in relative decline.
You must be kidding when calling Aurora optimistic. People were unable to colonise another planet even with unlimited energy (nuclear fusion), 3d-printers manufacturing anything you want, and powerful, friendly AI (quantum computing). Because it's so hard.
On the other hand, this novel is darker than Mars trilogy by the same author from 1990s, so the overall grim tendency can be seen.
GhatGPT 6 sees this video and generates a perfect optimistic scifi story that makes a million dollars which gets added to its world domination account.
I don't think that they ever were very optimistic. They run the gamut, like everything. Reality is not very optimistic stuff. YMMV, like always.
Try reading James P. Hogan's *_Two Faces of Tomorrow_* & *_Voyage from Yesteryear._*
non optimistic sci fi those involving extremity and challenges are also more entertaining to most people
SF dystopia sells more than SF utopia
Pessimistic science fiction has always existed in some manner. During the interbellum Aldous Huxley wrote several such stories, and he's still a household name. And who can mention Brave New World without mentioning 1984, published in 1949? This seems to be more about a public perception of what the bulk of science fiction ought to be. If you would have asked anyone in the time ranging from 1920 to 1960, they would have answered something about rocket ships and juvenile entertainment. Television and film made it go mainstream. Part of the reason why everyone keeps comparing Star Trek and Star Wars is probably the fact that they were the first pieces of science fiction to fully hit the mainstream. And while we're in the 70's, also consider that Mad Max blew away everyone's concept of what science fiction could be, and spawned as many copycats as Star Trek and Star Wars did. The average post-apocalyptic setting is still a dust-blown desert because Mad Max 2 was filmed in Australian and Namibian deserts.
I also wouldn't put too much stock in internet connectivity enabling more people to become writers. The biggest barrier is still in place: Language, and following from that, location. Ask people to name one living non-anglophone science fiction writer and they'll probably say Cixin Liu, because he got a very generous boost in the media. Ask them to name two, and they can't do it. Me personally? I couldn't name three, and English is my second language. Though, admittedly, I have trouble naming living science fiction writers in general, because I see a sharp decline in quality after the mid-80's. Instead, I'd put much more stock in information flowing from the writers to the readers than vice versa. Back in the day, you'd find out about Orson Scott Card's Mormonism years after reading his books. Today, you learn such a thing before you've even read them. Similarly the likes of Cixin Liu and John Scalzy get plastered over the internet, the latter especially owing his career to enough websites telling people to read his work.
Anyway, the real question is "why did public perception change?" And I think there's a simple answer, or at least a part of it. The 90's were incredibly optimistic in hindsight. You may not have noticed it at the time, what, with the Balkan Wars and everything, but the ever-pervasive threat of nuclear annihilation had been lifted. The free world (which still considered itself that back then) had won. New technology was rapidly transforming the world. Things were going to get better. And then we all collectively decided that, no, things aren't going to get better, there is a new, worse apocalypse looming over the horizon, and deep political divides are a cool thing to have. And when you remember optimistic science fiction, you're probably mostly remembering the 90's.
Was it H.G. Wells that wrote "the future ain't what it used to be" ?
1:20 - Surely you won't accuse _Space Merchants_ of being "optimist"...
The rise of nihilism and the sodomite agenda has made most modern sci fi tedious reading. Fortunately there is plenty of vintage pulp out there I haven't yet read.
Huh? "Aurora" isn't about a brighter future for humanity. The whole point of the book is to deconstruct utopian/optimistic sci-fi. Did you not get past like the halfway point?
'Why Isn't Sci-Fi Optimistic Anymo-'.
because....there are a Lot of P-GA era-bound Only (Sadly. seriously: the amount of COD:IW, BO3, AW, and even a bit of BO2's Haters out there) type COD players/people out there for example?
(anyways) Lore-wise speaking I mean. (though some parts of the Gameplay side of things over there is included on this one short reminding rant review of mine as well, yes that too).
I think it's been monopolistic publishers that cared more a forced agenda - Politically Correct back in the day now Woke or social justice - than any science fiction. Also its slavishly going to a "New thing" and thinking it will replace the old thing and fighting like mad to keep it there. Back in the day it was Adventure with lots of wonder and optimism put in and its like they fought it from day one. I understand, they don't want huge deco cities, giant infrastructure projects or an O'Niel space station; The Koch bros and other elites wanted tons of tax breaks and sci-fi was getting the public to scream for them IRL.
Also to be fair, over a while it was all "Westerns in space", "WW2 battles, in space"... The public could NOT get enough of it. More and more and more. However some editors were near suicidal with 1000 "I wanna be the next Francis Knowlan..." half-arsed documents on their desk. One ran off to start his own religion from that era...
When the 60s came they were able to push through elements that they didn't dare - oh, yes, fear of censorship and the prudish/paranoid 50s made everything G-rated too. So in comes the "New Wave" think Harlan Ellison with a chainsaw and wearing a duck mask. Alien was brilliant. However the public wanted more star wars, star trek - that's also why the B-movies did so well - the mass media owners wanted to treat it like a fluke but they wanted more and more of the "Space opera" + adventure.
For a while the "new wave" was brilliant and as a niche it still is. Like the Deconstructionist period Comic Books had in the mid 80s breaking the "Comics Code" and social stereotypes. But now like comic books they are stagnating with the editors wanting "MOooar Alien and shove in some DeeeeVersity.... Yeah, your token friend from College can't write to save its life? Get a ghost writer then we'll give it an award and let it rant how they hate white males and the patriarchy..."
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Now that was criminally simplistic and NOT "Politically Correct".
IMO people WANT optimism, not crude Trekkian vanilla college student communism but heroes fighting bad guys and adventure and sex and fun - not some list of appeasement to what others who'll NEVER buy it want it to be and bland imitation of "The current thang" (Alien) Though I love said niche we are also already entering the Sci-Fi dystopia of "Cyberpunk". We need heroic adventures in other realms or space adventures in a world we'd want to live in. Not whining "Durn Kumpany, we'z expendable" Alien nihilism rip off #1323023... with token rainbow colored snowflake sentiment sprinkled in and "Written" by a snarling hateful person chosen for "Diversity" points with ZERO talent using a ghost writer who'll then be fashionably radical and write something about AiArt/AiWriting as if its a bad thing.
I'm not sure why sci-fi and fantasy authors are writing so much " Downer, Doom and Gloom " stories these days ! However, one reason I think " Dystopian and Dysfunctional " stories are so popular is that maybe the writers are younger and pessimistic ! These newer writers and alot of them are from China surprisingly have been through economic collapses and a greatly diminished job market for 1,000s of fresh University graduates, they see corruption within their government, and see society and nature falling apart ! Pollution is accelerating, and some don't see much of a future ; pandemic fears and wars haven't stopped either. I think if there was less chaos , these writers might be more optimistic. We shall which wins .
Why? Because we live in a depressing corporatocrasy without a bright future 😮
H.G Wells was much more pessimistic than most.
Optimism met real life and withered away?
Why?! Why isnt sci-fi optimistic anymore!?
*gestures at everything*
Most adults today remember the world as it was before: an objectively a better place. Most authors are, unsurprisingly, just following that downward projection.
But that’s subjective not objective. There are plenty of minority groups who were much worse off in the past than now.
@@ThreeRunHomer This. Anyone who thinks the past was objectively better is probably a white male, a group that's traditionally had to worry much less about, y'know, being enslaved, colonised or forbidden access to education, voting etc.
In fact by most _actually_ objective measures (levels of poverty, literacy, infant mortality, life expectancy etc.) the past was, on average, substantially worse.
@@ThreeRunHomer True, but at the same time the world at large gets worse.
Well, their memory sucks then. Because it objectively wasn't. Subjectivity and in some places might be better, but if 1950s American was better than now, 1950s Korea wasn't. And you'd be really hard pressed to say the first part of that is true in any case.
It doesn't help that Musk with so much control of where the free world is headed is a conservative slow to explore the newest developing technologies.
Like?
When was it optimistic? From its roots there has always been a pessistic streak to scifi.
Because the internet has shown us how terrible human beings really are. Even if we reach a post-scarcity society in the future, that post-scarcity society will only be for the rich. We're basically doomed because we're too selfish and apathetic.
And? Most animals are selfish too.
While I think the answer to this question is pretty clear (the future looks less rosy than it used to), it still annoys me that I can't read some sci-fi that isn't pessimistic.
Fine, the world is f***ed. Can we focus on something else please.
The future doesn't look like anything. It is the present that is grim and people extrapolate that.
@@frankie3010 The future people see is the path from our current, we can change path, but it means we have to take that action, though people can legit just not see the paths properly and think we are on the path to self destruction, when we might be on our way to the greatest moment in humanity.
@@frankie3010 Yes, but the present has been continually getting worse, and we need a reason to believe that will change and reverse course, at some point.
@@guruthosamarthruin4459 I agree. I also want this awful trend to end
An optimistic science fiction has to be believable for me to engage with it, it doesn’t seem very easy to craft such a world
I don't know...Marvel's movies and all those zombies and vampires made is-fi a bad name...
Why not optimistic?
Very easy, because we are being replaced with machines.
Quite frankly, I hate modern scifi. Everything is dystopian post apocalyptic war/climate disaster anticapitalistic mankind sucks gloom and doom horseshit these days. "After mankind destroyed the Earth in a war fought over resources made scarce by the ruination of the climate due to greed, man set out for the stars in the last remaining ship. But the crew all went psychotic and gutted each other. The AI running the ship said 'See there? Told you so' " Run credits.
I lol’d at this 😂
KSR's Aurora is NOT optimistic, the point is that we should never try to conquer other worlds, that we are not up to the challenge... It marked the end of the author to me, specially when compared to the Mars Trilogy; after that, everything he writes seems to me politically charged, cynical and simplistic.