# Anyone up for a philosophical discussion about science fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 26, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309 "2017-04-26T18:23:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/21 "2017-04-27T18:36:11Z")
Cyberpunk as a genre was as much about class disparity and the existence of a gritty underworld of improverished but technologically sophisticated underclass below an exceeding wealthy executive upper caste as it is flying cars, neon signs, and leather trench coats. It is largely a reframing of Victorian-style socioeconomic divisions under advanced computing technology which is so cheap it isn’t even a commodity (an analogy made explicit in Neal Stephenson’s _The Diamond Age_) and the style of the underclass is a sort of 'Eighties punker combined with Maker nerd. I would argue that while the term “cyberpunk” has fallen out of vogue, in part because of the poor adaptation and representation of classic cyberpunk stories like _Johnny Mnemonic_ to popular media, the essential themes and much of the gritty underworld stylings of the cyberpunk genre have permiated modern science fiction in both cinematic and written form. Certainly shows like _Firefly_ and _The Expanse_ and movies like _Minority Report_ and _Looper_ borrow elements of style such as mixed cultures communicating in street pigeon, advanced technology which is accessible to unscrupulous people used for criminal purposes, and evident class divisions, all essentially originating in the film that Gibson considered a perfect cinematic representation of the cyberpunk genre, _Blade Runner_. And of course, there is a sequel to that film (the disappointingly uncreatively titled _Blade Runner 2049_) coming out later this year. Some of the more fantastical elements of cyberpunk, such as being able to “jack” into digital computers with a computer-neural interface, have been largely discarded as being too advanced or unrealistic and some of the campier elements of “hacking” (flying through virtual skyscrapers of data and systems) are no longer frequently portrayed because they’ve become hackneyed, Gibson, et al continue to influence modern science fiction of this generation as much as A.E. van Vogt and Isaac Asimov did for the post-Golden Age writers and filmmakers. And as the technology catches up with speculation, the details tend to seem less fantastical, e.g. networked computing augments versus jacking into a server, personal digital assistants rather than “avatars”, et cetera. My current favorite futurist role playing game, _Eclipse Phase_, is basically cyberpunk met Lovecraftian existential horror with some _2001: A Space Odyssey_ “alien technology indistinguishable from magic” thrown in, and frankly much of it seems all too plausible. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/22 "2017-04-28T02:58:37Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Although I haven’t read any cyberpunk in a while, there’s also a lot of wizard in the image. They have some special arcane knowledge and use the power of their mind (plus a spell-book/wand like computer) to project their consciousness and explore a world normals cannot see to find hidden information and make things happen. I think the elite hacker-wizard trope has fallen out of favor not so much because real-world hackers are boring (real-world cowboys and pirates were also mostly boring) but because the internet is something everyone uses, it’s not a strange place that you need a special brain modifications to get use out of, and you explore it with a web browser, not with a game-like interface of flying around looking for data stores behind firewalls. If you watch any of the cop shows or CSI shows or superhero shows that are so popular these days, you’ll still see your hacker-wizards [del]encanting spells[/del] spouting technobabble to catch the bad guys, break into a secure facility, find matching DNA. Difference is that instead of jacking into the datastream, they use Google. May as well be magic. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/23 "2017-04-28T03:08:14Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > If you watch any of the cop shows or CSI shows or superhero shows that are so popular these days, you’ll still see your hacker-wizards [del]encanting spells[/del] spouting technobabble to catch the bad guys, break into a secure facility, find matching DNA. Difference is that instead of jacking into the datastream, they use Google. May as well be magic. Side story: Awhile ago on another messageboard, a jackass bragged about keying a neighbor’s car. Folks said “Pix or it didn’t happen.” So the jackass posted a pic. At which point my brother opened the picture’s properties and found the GPS coordinates. He cross-referenced that against the guy’s posts (where he said he’d keyed the car with his apartment number in revenge for the car parking in his spot), figured out the guy’s address, figured out the guy’s name, and posted it. Later, through another story that’s way crazier, the dude posted that he was going to federal prison. My brother ended up tracking down his court case, figured out that part of his bail agreement was that he wouldn’t go on the Internet, and forwarded screencaps of the posts to the DA who was handling the case. My brother is a cyberpunk hero. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/24 "2017-04-28T08:57:18Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > to a certain extent, the dark, techno-noir cyberpunk aesthetic has gone the way of shiny rockets and silver jumpsuits. When you put it like that, I have to admit you’re right. Dang it. Them leather-duster-wearing, mirrorshade-having, long-haired master geeks were hot. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Now that the future is on us, and we know that yer average hacker ain’t exactly oozing sex appeal, maybe it’s not as compelling a genre. See above. Dang it. Also, your brother has indeed mad skillz. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > Readers buy it. They drive trends. If you publish a cyberpunk novel and no one buys it, then, as a publisher, you’re less likely to publish another. Yes, but what if we’ve _ **already bought those novels** _? Should we buy them two or three times, to make sure that publishers get the message? I seriously doubt that if Neal Stephenson wrote another epic cyberpunk novel, he’d have any trouble moving it. (I love his work. I think he’s brilliant. And I tried, but I just couldn’t plow through "The Baroque Cycle.’ I would love to rail against this cynical, market-driven point of view, but I know that’s how things work these days. After all, a successful cyberpunk(ish?) author like, say, Cory Doctorow can’t just _ **give his novels away** _ and expect to succeed… oh, wait… I agree that the genre’s worldview seems to be doing very well in terms of movies. I cannot wait to see _Ghost in the Shell_, _Valerian_, and _Guardians of the Galaxy II._ Hell, I could even make a case for _Rick & Morty_ being the inheritors of the mantle. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/25 "2017-04-28T12:44:43Z")
Granted it’s a television show, but I feel _Mr. Robot_ is a fine example of an updated, if not semi-realistic take on the cyberpunk genre. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/26 "2017-04-28T14:23:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Science fiction may be written about other times and places but it’s written in a particular time and place. And it’s inevitably going to be a reflection of the time and place it was written in. That’s why stories written by British SF authors have a distinct flavor that’s different from stories written by American SF authors even when the stories are set on another planet. Or why stories written in the forties, stories written in the seventies, and stories written in the nineties are all different even if the stories are all set in the year 3000. > > So cyberpunk went away because the society that was writing cyberpunk went away. Authors in 2017 don’t write about the future the way that authors in 1987 did. Even a 2017 author who chooses to write in a cyberpunk style is not writing it in the way that a 1987 author did. The 1987 author was simply writing in the style of his time; the 2017 author is writing in a style from his past. This. I have raised it to the status of a Law. All science fiction is about the present. (Though it really needs as asterisk. \*The present is the time period that sits in the author’s head. All of Asimov’s worlds are set in 1930s Brooklyn. All of Heinlein’s worlds are responses to WWII. The first Buck Rogers story has a beautiful description of a flip phone but it’s just a Yellow Peril yarn from the 1910s. Cyberpunk is set an alternate world in which Japan takes over financially and culturally. At least Victorian England existed, so people can write a thousand Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Cyberpunk never was and looks increasingly outre for anybody who didn’t live through it.) Nobody can write those worlds any more, i.e. they literally don’t write 'em like they used to.) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/27 "2017-04-30T03:00:19Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > When you put it like that, I have to admit you’re right. Dang it. Them leather-duster-wearing, mirrorshade-having, long-haired master geeks were hot. Sadly, I’m going to also ask you to retire your nu-metal drum & bass techno trip hop NIN Rage Against the Machine Prodigy Crystal Method Dust Brothers RZA from Wu Tang Clan soundtracks as well. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/28 "2017-04-30T11:42:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > This. > > I have raised it to the status of a Law. All science fiction is about the present. (Though it really needs as asterisk. \*The present is the time period that sits in the author’s head. All of Asimov’s worlds are set in 1930s Brooklyn. All of Heinlein’s worlds are responses to WWII. The first Buck Rogers story has a beautiful description of a flip phone but it’s just a Yellow Peril yarn from the 1910s. Cyberpunk is set an alternate world in which Japan takes over financially and culturally. At least Victorian England existed, so people can write a thousand Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Cyberpunk never was and looks increasingly outre for anybody who didn’t live through it.) Nobody can write those worlds any more, i.e. they literally don’t write 'em like they used to.) This, too ;). Good rumination in this thread. You’re getting your discussion, **brujaja**. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/29 "2017-04-30T13:37:51Z")
The posts at 16 and 26 (Little Nemo and Exapno Mapcase) covered most of what I was going to say. I only want to add one more element, which is that “genre’s” and other labels are almost never created by those who are being labeled. Outside observers, such as historians, art critics and the like, are the ones who declare that “movements” or “fads” or whatever, have come to exist. Sometimes, the fact that a label is created, directly causes or sets off an expansion of what was just a happenstance phenomenon, and it literally takes on a life of it’s own for a while. Sometimes giving a label to something, can even cause it to come into existence, when it really didn’t exist before then. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of human history (my own central area of fascination). I think of it sometimes, as akin to the image of people running across deep pits filled with liquefied corn starch. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/30 "2017-04-30T13:45:05Z")
What, in that it’s non-Newtonian in nature? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/31 "2017-04-30T14:15:13Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > I only want to add one more element, which is that “genre’s” and other labels are almost never created by those who are being labeled. Outside observers, such as historians, art critics and the like, are the ones who declare that “movements” or “fads” or whatever, have come to exist. Though a significant number of cyberpunk authors did consider themselves to be part of a movement and published manifestos and in-group magazines, while the cyberpunk movement was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/32 "2017-04-30T16:14:40Z")
Cyberpunk never really seemed to have a lot to say. It was deeply paranoid – trust no one! – and that limits its dramatic potential. It also really shot its bolt with the grand revelation of the hacker meeting the AI and realizing it was a “first encounter with alien intelligence.” Okay, great scene: monumental! But where do you go from there? Cyberpunk may deserve credit for helping us, in the real world, avoid some of the effects of a data-intensive dystopia. It made us aware of data-mining, net-bots, the need for better password protection, the need for better data encryption, etc. It red-flagged a number of real-world dangers, which we have not totally avoided, but perhaps reduced, in part because of this fictional emphasis. (Just as nuclear-war dystopian fiction has, possibly, reduced the likelihood of nuclear war in real life.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/33 "2017-05-01T00:27:32Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > The posts at 16 and 26 (Little Nemo and Exapno Mapcase) covered most of what I was going to say. I only want to add one more element, which is that “genre’s” and other labels are almost never created by those who are being labeled. Outside observers, such as historians, art critics and the like, are the ones who declare that “movements” or “fads” or whatever, have come to exist. > > Sometimes, the fact that a label is created, directly causes or sets off an expansion of what was just a happenstance phenomenon, and it literally takes on a life of it’s own for a while. Sometimes giving a label to something, can even cause it to come into existence, when it really didn’t exist before then. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of human history (my own central area of fascination). I think of it sometimes, as akin to the image of people running across deep pits filled with liquefied corn starch. Yes, absolutely. Also no, absolutely. Yes, getting a label slapped on a group that is apparently cohesive, whether they are or not, happens all the time. Many artists loudly decry this nonsense. And yet, artists getting together with a common interest in changing their art in a somewhat parallel and cohesive way also happens all the time. Most of them loudly spend the next ten years decrying the nonsense and then twenty years out realize how wonderful those times were and proudly embrace them. Science fiction was until recently a small and thoroughly incestuous social club. People did get together and declare manifestos almost in the way that the avant garde art movements of the early 20th century did. Cyberpunks, led by Bruce Sterling, absolutely had a house organ, [Cheap Truth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Truth). “The newsletter was critical towards what its editors regarded as the “stagnant state of popular science fiction”.” The New Wave movement of the 1960s had centers in [Milford, PA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Writer%27s_Workshop) (note the influence on Sterling) and London, especially Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds magazine. 1962’s \* SF Horizon\*, a journal of criticism, (and, wow, was it critical), had this on its [cover](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u1zth3E9WU4/VSgLZZU-P0I/AAAAAAAANJ4/jD7g7hLJsPc/s1600/SFHRZNSNDX1964.jpg): “The establishment must die and rot…” The [Futurians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurians) of the 1940s literally met in each others’ houses and most of them married one another serially. They all wanted to be in John Campbell’s Astounding, which defined what is now called the Golden Age of Science Fiction and he wanted a new, more modern type of science fiction than Hugo Gernsback had instigated. Most of the Futurians were kids who didn’t make it until later, but most of the adults in California’s [Mañana Literary Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C3%B1ana_Literary_Society). Throw a rock at a group in science fiction, and with luck you’ll hit two of them. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2017, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/34 "2017-05-01T00:54:05Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > Yes, but what if we’ve _ **already bought those novels** _? Should we buy them two or three times, to make sure that publishers get the message? I seriously doubt that if Neal Stephenson wrote another epic cyberpunk novel, he’d have any trouble moving it. (I love his work. I think he’s brilliant. And I tried, but I just couldn’t plow through "The Baroque Cycle.’ > > I would love to rail against this cynical, market-driven point of view, but I know that’s how things work these days. After all, a successful cyberpunk(ish?) author like, say, Cory Doctorow can’t just _ **give his novels away** _ and expect to succeed… oh, wait… Not sure what point you’re trying to make. Buying multiple copies of a book is going to be a drop in the bucket in sales. Authors who have established themselves can buck the trend and write whatever they want, even if no one else can get it published. Stephenson and Doctorow have established audiences; their name is more important than the genre. And it _always_ worked this way. The only real differences was the audiences used to be more open minded and try things that were outside their usual reading. The cost of books – like the cost of any art form – causes the audience to be less willing to try new things. ---
**Author:** ![Section\_Maker\_Jupe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/section_maker_jupe/32/1424_2.png) [@Section\_Maker\_Jupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Section_Maker_Jupe)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309/35 "2017-05-07T23:44:01Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I haven’t seen it, but from the trailers, it looks like it has an aesthetic more similar the “flamboyantly bright and shiny future” as portrayed in films like 5th Element and Wachowski sci fi films like Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Rising (ironically not borrowing heavily from the original Ghost in the Shell like their Matrix films). > Cyberpunk, as depicted in 80s and 90s films like Blade Runner, Alien, The Matrix, Terminator, Max Headroom, Johnny Mnemonic and Ghost in largely presents a dark “not to distant future” of ubiquitous and intrusive technology, cyborgs, overly powerful abusive megacorporations, information overload, terrorism (both cyber and normal), threat of nuclear war, economic collapse and even questions on what it means to be “human”. > > That world is largely no longer science “fiction”. IOW, to a certain extent, the dark, techno-noir cyberpunk aesthetic has gone the way of shiny rockets and silver jumpsuits. > \*\*Not Carlson \*\* makes an excellent point about films like “Her”. Much of science fiction is a reflection of our fears and hopes for the future. Ours is a world where, if not actual AI, at least very smart machines are becoming more commonplace. Probably why films and shows like Her, Ex Machina, Battlestar Galactica, and Westworld are popular. I completely agree…great thread and posts from all as well. I’ve been a sci fi reader since I could read, late 50’s early 60’s, but cyberpunk really grabbed me. Perhaps it also coincided with my early computer use? (google? thats a weird name…it makes a library of things for you…I asked back then) When I get sick or need to rest my brain, every few years, I reread all the early Gibson books. the Neuromancer and Bridge series… I think part of Gibsons draw, for me at least, is his descriptive abilities as a writer, seems to really make it real for me. Isnt there an old Villa Straylight shell circling ovehead? I used to love Neil Stevenson’s work as well, but…I dont know, he started to have so much wordy output…just weird… I kinda gave up on him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-up-for-a-philosophical-discussion-about-science-fiction/785309.md?page=1)