Dystopias are Realistic? I’m Not so Sure Paolo…

I agree: it’s extremely difficult (probably next to impossible) to predict the future. Therefore nobody can say with a 100% certainty if the future will be better or worse (apart from the complicating factor that one person’s ‘worse’ might be another person’s ‘better’).

Still, the predominant mode in SF is to depict the near-future as dystopian. So much that the majority of SF writers find it very hard (almost next to impossible) to write an upbeat near-future story.

Hence my rant “Why I Can’t Write a Near-Future, Optimistic SF Story: the Excuses“. In excuse 2 (‘optimism is not realistic’) I address the point that tomorrow may very well be better than today.

That rant was mostly meant to rally SF writers, and some of the stories they subsequently sent me appeared in SHINE (quite a few writers *didn’t* need this call-to-arms, I hasten to add).

Of course, with SHINE I — and the authors — didn’t intend to predict the future, but to inspire people to work towards that better future. Some things in the SHINE stories will be wrong, some will be right, but one of the important things is: dare to be wrong.

It’s another reason a lot of SF writers prefer dystopias: if these don’t happen they can say that their cautionary tale helped prevent it (on which I call bullshit), and when it does happen they can say “I told you so”. But mostly I think that the downbeat mode is preferred because it’s so much easier to write. It’s the easy way out.

The hard way is trying to think of solutions, and dare to be wrong, and try again.

On my flist, this turned up immediately after your link to the Bacigalupi article.

Interesting discussion, and certainly likely to provoke a number of sf writers. It would be tempting to write an essay on this. Anyway…

A common theme in Dystopian fiction is the utopia gone wrong (Brave New World was described as a negative utopia), but often a critique of some political ideology taken to its extreme.

Of course, it’s reasonable to assume that in the near future the general trend will be an improvement to living standards, judging by the past century or two. The complacency comes from the belief that things will more of less keep to the progression curve. Then something has to happen to upset the status-quo: a high consequence, low probability event, like an asteroid strike, nuclear war or alien invasion. And, after all, taking precautions against these low probability events requires a large investment. But how often are governments thinking in terms of future decades, let alone centuries? They’re thinking about balancing the budget before the next election.

I’m sure natural disasters can be dealt with; the eruption of Yellowstone or any major volcano could be difficult but any large rock-strike can be averted. The real threat is from sentient invaders. The only major investment planned against that was SDI (aka Star Wars). Reagan actually admitted it was partly as a defence from ETs, though surely not just because his predecessor had seen a UFO.

It would be amazing if this worse-case scenario has not been discussed at the highest level. But since it’s likely to fall under the “we don’t know quite what we’re dealing with so it will be classified above top secret” category, no one else will know … until it’s too late. And the dystopia becomes a reality.

Paolo is wrong, I think.

“Young people” (if we can even begin to separate out groups of readers by their age and assign any kind of meaningful collective intent) like dystopias for exactly the same reason that I like them:

lawlessness or an implied lawlessness.

Teens/adolescents/people maturing/just about everyone comes to the realization at some point in their lives that there are these things called rules and there is this concept that you’re supposed to follow those rules. Dystopias make those rules meaningless.

There is also (usually) the sense that out of the chaos, new things, new order (order more beneficial and meaningful) will arise.

Finally, there seems to be a generally held belief that in order to ‘fix’ things, the old order must be entirely obliterated. Dystopia is the mechanism by which this is achieved. Perhaps more than anything else, the concept is a trope that says ‘everything you know is meaningless, we’re starting over from scratch’.

Jetse, that article discusses overpopulation as an “environmental” problem and/or seems to try to tie concern over it into a “white privilege” issue.

My personal concern with over-population is not strictly an environmental one, it is a common sense one: fewer people put less strain on all systems and all resources. Why should we be concerned with over-fishing, lack of fresh water, carbon production, destruction of habitat, cost of education, cost of health care and all the rest when cutting back to a sustainable population addresses all of them? I can’t see any justification for having more than a billion people on the planet.
Fewer people is better in almost every regard – more stuff available to distribute to fewer people.
I’ve got no problem going the natural route: education, empowerment and equality seem to be natural checks on growth. I’d prefer the restriction of breeding to those who won’t pass on birth defects, but that’s simply too suggestive of eugenics for most people, so I’ll just keep that to myself.

“curbing the population *alone* is probably not enough”

I agree 100%. It must be the “right” population.

That’s tongue-in-cheek.

I attended a high school that had almost 4,000 students. The local community valued education and the school system was ranked consistently in the highest among the nation.
Nevertheless – it would have been a much better experience if the same resources had been spread amongst 400 students rather than 4,000. (Lunch would have been MUCH better.) (This ignores the fact that economics and politics would have been adjusted accordingly, but it also echos your statement: reduction alone is not enough – many other things need to be addressed in order to manage efficiently. But the local attitude towards the importance of education would not have changed, just the tax base.)
Graduation ceremonies took so long that the school band recorded about 20 minutes of pomp-and-circumstance so that they could take a (much needed) break during the hours long processional….