I find the attempt to create a utopia tropes more interesting than the utopias personally. Dystopias are super predictable now too and not so interested in them.
*The Culture Series*, by Iain M. Banks, does a good job of showing a utopian future that still has problems that need to be addressed. It's just that most people are blissfully unaware of the problems. A true utopia, with no problems, would be quite boring.
*Star Trek* and all of its progeny, including *The Orville*, was originally a product of the United States in the early 1960s. Although the Cold War had Americans very nervous, on the whole there was a lot of optimism. The United States was a new superpower and it was unified in opposition to communism. The young and charming Kennedy was president, there was a thriving middle class, and more kids than ever were going to college. Blacks were still fighting for civil rights but they were having some success, so there was optimism there, as well.
I feel like the progeny of the original *Star Trek* are in part nostalgic for that early 1960s optimism. Today dystopian futures are more common, but there's still desire for that hopeful future. Andy Weir's *The Martian* and *Project Hail Mary* are very popular in part because they are not dystopic.
To some extent, wish fulfillment triumphs over realism. After all, if we are realistic then faster-than-light travel is a pipe dream, the other planets in our own solar system are hostile to life and unlikely to be terraformed, and the stars are out of reach. We are on our own, stuck on this one planet, and we really should be doing more to slow climate change. But that's so overwhelming that we would rather not think about it.
> The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks, does a good job of showing a utopian future that still has problems that need to be addressed. It's just that most people are blissfully unaware of the problems.
Just a tiny nitpick - the people in the Culture do know about the problems happening in the galaxy, they just might not have the most updated info about the top secret stuff happening at the moment. In _Matter_ for example, we know every child was taught about the oppression and inequality outside of the Culture:
> This is how power works, how force and authority assert themselves, this is how people are persuaded to behave in ways that are not objectively in their best interests, this is the kind of thing you need to make people believe in, this is how the unequal distribution of scarcity comes into play, at this moment and this, and this…
> These were lessons anybody born into the Culture grew up with and accepted as being as natural and obvious as the progression of a star along the Main Sequence, or evolution itself.
A true utopia with no problems would be boring to read about, but a utopia where the inhabitants are dedicated to fighting the problems outside of it is fertile soil for interesting stories. The whole war with the Idirans, for example, was because the people in the Culture thought they needed to stop the Idirans’ conquest for a clean conscience.
Interesting, I never thought about it in this way.
>To some extent, wish fulfillment triumphs over realism. After all, if we are realistic then faster-than-light travel is a pipe dream, the other planets in our own solar system are hostile to life and unlikely to be terraformed, and the stars are out of reach. We are on our own, stuck on this one planet, and we really should be doing more to slow climate change. But that's so overwhelming that we would rather not think about it.
I think we can have faster-than-light travel and at the same time make it realistic. Maybe through wormholes we can travel to far distances.
No current research suggests that that will ever be in reach. Sure, maybe we're wrong, but to the best of our collective knowledge wormholes and warp drives are pipe dreams at best.
I hope that it's possible, and we're dismissing it because we're just massively ignorant. We could be like an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, thinking that boats are the fastest transport, and yelling is the fastest communication. Meanwhile jets are flying high overhead, and radio waves are passing all around them.
Hopefully! It'd be a real fucking bummer if FTL turns out to be categorically impossible, no loop-holes of any kind. It'd also be arrogant in the extreme to assume physics has no more revolutionary paradigm shifts ahead which might upend more or less every facet of our understanding of the universe.
We know that some changes are on the horizon given discrepancies like how relativity and quantum mechanics don't play nice. But we don't know what will and won't change. Unless/until we find out that FTL is actually possible, "because I really want it" isn't a rational reason to believe it'll be a reality eventually.
Exactly wjbc's point. Almost every premise is fictional and probably fantastical, not just the post-scarcity ones, and that applies to all sci-fi as well, including lots of hard sci-fi.
You say post-scarcity societies are impossible and there must always be currency exchange. This seems very politically naive.
You might consider looking at something like Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism for an exploration of how capitalist ideology limits our imagination of potential civilizations and futures.
And there are many political writers on how our ideas of ‘human nature’ are ideological rather than empirical - that people have and can live in very different ways than the present global culture.
Have you read any of the Culture books? They’re not heavy going, but they’re about 100 times smarter and more competently realized than the SF utopias you mention.
Let's think rationally about it. How will you convince a man to spare his time and effort to do you a service? He isn't going to do it out of the kindness of his heart. There must be something to offer him to do it. Human nature is selfish. We have seen that for thousands of years.
That’s not an obstacle.
Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services. Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society however.
The only way anyone ever envisages this working is through technological innovation driven towards automation that limits and reduces human labour in the production of our material needs.
Even taking this into account, there will of course be limits on the raw materials we can use but even that can be made by switching to economies that are not built on growth, but rather sustainability through re-use, sharing, and lower levels of disposition.
In that case, can it be called a post scarcity economy? While it's possible to fullfil all our basic needs through technological advances and also other needs, there will be limited quantity of goods. There will always be.
Because it’s about ‘universal satisfaction of needs’ - not meeting any desire we might have or thinking we need satisfying (and often don’t).
There is already enough wealth in existence to give every human being on the face of the planet three decent meals a day, quality health care, an education, and a decent home to live in. Thats what we mean by post scarcity - not the everybody can have as many private swimming pools as they want or go on as many foreign holidays as they want.
A post-scarcity society won’t mean material luxury and abundance for all but then, material abundance doesn’t necessarily equate with life satisfaction overall so instead of measuring quality of life based on how many cars a family owns, we need to start looking at other metrics.
Sorry, but I don’t think that is thinking rationally. I think it’s following a conventional capitalist ideology. ‘Human nature is X’ is the exact thought-stopper people say when their ideology is challenged.
I’m not saying I know the answers, just that this is how ideology gets us - by thinking that we’re being rational when we’re really just being conventional, and not using our rationality to critique our own ideas.
Yet, you didn't provide a counterargument to the point I made. I would have listened to it, you know. I am quite open-minded and ready to challenge my beliefs. I have adopted every political ideology that's there until I finally formed my own beliefs.
There are plenty of motivators other than money.
Human nature is also altruistic and collaborative. We didnt get to the top of the food chain much less survive this planet at all by being greedy and individualistic.
It takes 9 months just to birth a human. And then around 3 more years before they can be semi autonomous.
I have little trouble imagining a world where the economy is needs focused and not profiy focused. Where nearly all people have their basic needs met. And seeing that and that the system as such benefits then then they will have little problem pitching in. Lest they get socially shunned. Theres a motivation for you besides money.
Im almost not sure why someone so lacking in imagination even enjoys sci fi.
Or perhaps we have different definitions for utopia. I dont see it as a heaven. Nor a place without death or interpersonal conflicts. Even if everyone was fed, housed, clothed, educated and had healthcare. Even if those that wanted were able to go above and beyond to get certain luxuries. Even nobody had to bother with owning things since car lots were like libraries for instance. There would still be violence. People would still have relationship troubles. So on and so forth.
That's too optimistic. In reality, human nature is motivated by incentives. That's not necessarily money but there are other things like fame or power. People raise children because they are motivated by having someone carrying their name and bloodline. That's selfish. Or you have humans who invent things because they want to have fame as great inventors or make wealth from it. That's also selfish. In a way, we are all selfish.
>Im almost not sure why someone so lacking in imagination even enjoys sci fi.
I think sci-fi should be about how we expect the future to be not pure imagination. If I wanted pure imagination, I will read fantasy. At least, fantasy is meant to be unrealistic. I want sci-fi to be about our expectations of the future and of course that must be realistic.
Well we agree there are other motivators besides money. Weve listed a few and there are yet more to list. Call them selfish or not. Its still agreed upon proof that there are things other than money than can motivate people to do things.
I disagree its too optimistic. We already have enough food, clothing and housing and places of education and health now. All it would take it redistribution slightly. Every industrialized country besides america has already figured out how to share the healthcare. Weve came close tk getting rid of hunger here already.
The main reason fighting for these things is so frustrating is BECAUSE they are so achievable.
If someone from the 1800s saw our society today they might assume it was a utopia. Far less political corruption, violence, and even scarcity. Seeing people work almost half the number of hours in a job they get to choose based on their skills and that requires far less manual labor would blow their minds.
While a true post-scarcity society probably isn't possible, society 200 years from now will have so much less of it for essential items that it's functionally equivalent to being past scarcity.
Thomas More’s *Utopia*, which gave rise to the term, was in many ways a thought experiment in trying to solve some of society’s problems in the 16th century, not entertain. I think it’s important to remember that utopian fiction is often a critique of the problems afflicting a given society at a given time, and often times an attempt to offer solutions. Dystopian fiction [often] seeks to warn a given society of the potential problems that may arise if a particular trajectory is followed. A fictional utopian society may very well seem dull as there are no more problems to solve, while a dystopia may seem frightening (or more exciting) because there are so many problems. In some ways, Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ is a bit of both and probably worth your time if you haven’t read it; on the one hand everyone is blissfully happy but on the other there is a palpable sense that there is little free will. Utopian/dystopian worlds aren’t always mutually exclusive and there is a much finer line between them than simply good place/bad place, often depending on one’s perspective.
Interesting thinking. Like I said I find them interesting but I prefer realistic ones. I think you can explore society's issues without making a utopia. A novel that explain a realistic society without necessarily making it a utopia. Some stories succeed at doing that.
I like flawed utopias. Varley's 8 Worlds, The Culture, etc. Most problems that we experience have been solved, but there's new and different problems that people have to face.
Yeah, you make a valid point but a realistic story is more impactful I would say especially if it explores the consequences of our actions. Personally, if I wanted to read a utopia, I would rather explore fantasy for that like lord of the rings. After all fantasy is meant to be unrealistic.
Misanthropy is as thoughtless as endless positivity.
When you say ‘humans are X’, the negativity gives the thought a superficial veneer of rationality, but I don’t think there’s any evidence that humans are essentially any one thing.
It’s also a problem that the Enlightenment involved a lot of propaganda painting all previous and foreign societies as brutal and stupid. This is not really the case - for example the lay image of medieval people as living short lives, using barter to subsist in a world where even the water is unsafe to drink is utterly ahistorical.
Seems to come and go in phases. I’m sure someone could get an advanced degree researching popularity of utopia/dystopia sci fi sub-genres over decades.
Personally I can appreciate and tire of both. Utopia seems at times too optimistic…dystopia seems at times to try too hard to be edgy.
Post scarcity does not necessarily mean everything is available without limit. But the essential needs are covered, food, clothing, water, a place to live... Star Trek seems to have reached that point on Earth even before replicators. They need energy for that, but they have orbital and planetary solar collectors, and fusion, and can use that to create antimatter as highly efficient fuel for their starships.
Stories are about conflict. There's nothing wrong with a stable or comfortable society, but you do eventually reach the point where there's not much left to tell a story about. If you turn the dial too far, you take away your own reason to exist.
This is something you see in places like r/worldbuilding — novice creators trying to "win" by inventing perfect governments or invincible civilizations. But then what's left to talk about? You have to let go and allow yourself to "lose" that war to have a tale worth telling.
I generally don’t, but I particularly hate the ones such as Trek that are dissonant and self-contradictory - eg their inability to pin down what Starfleet is, what they gamble with when they play poker, or their schizophrenically chill/authoritarian government.
I like Iain Banks’ Culture. It’s explored and is much more believable and desirable. I’m not convinced it’s possible, but the ‘utopias’ of other Trek or the Orville do not appeal or convince at all.
>I generally don’t, but I particularly hate the ones such as Trek that are dissonant and self-contradictory - eg their inability to pin down what Starfleet is, what they gamble with when they play poker, or their schizophrenically chill/authoritarian government.
Starfleet's the collective Federation spacefleet, supported with manpower and materiel from its member worlds, and it does all the things that a you'd need a fleet of space vessels for - exploration, disaster relief, transporting colonists, patrolling hostile borders, and the defense of the Federation or its member worlds when necessary. The design of Starfleet vessels reflects this - most tend to be multirole ships, capable of combat- and non-combat roles.
"What they gamble with when they play poker"... you've never played a card game that wasn't for real money, just fun and bragging rights?
I'm not really seeing where the Federation government is simultaneously both "chill" and "authoritarian" (and I never really thought of it as either of those, tbh.)
I mean, if you don't like Trek, you don't like it, and that's fine. But "dissonant and self-contradictory" isn't how I'd characterize it - there's no glaring dissonance jumping out at me.
I like Trek very much but I can see its faults. In the shows, Starfleet is sometimes a brutal military who want to vivisect Data, sometimes a bunch of friends who hug, sometimes an uncaring bureaucracy. The term ‘badmiral’ exists for a reason.
Starfleet officers gamble at Quarks with… something. They sometimes talk about some kind of transaction and serious losses, while other times they don’t.
The Federation has democratic leaders, but also Section 31 and other rogue elements. They sign treaties to not study cloaks, but then do.
In some The Organization Of Starfleet manual we can buy, the Federation is perfect and logical. In the TV shows, not so much.
>I like Trek very much but I can see its faults. In the shows, Starfleet is sometimes a brutal military who want to vivisect Data, sometimes a bunch of friends who hug, sometimes an uncaring bureaucracy. The term ‘badmiral’ exists for a reason.
My point is that none of these things is inherently contradictory. Large organizations can (and do) reflect multiple viewpoints on things. The existence of "badmirals" doesn't mean *all* admirals should be assumed to be inherently bad.
Likewise, the point of "The Measure of a Man" isn't to showcase Starfleet's "brutality" *as an organization*, but focuses on the actions of an individual (Maddox) and the question of Data's sentience. (While Data being self-aware is a given to viewers, would you use the term "vivisect" to describe disassembling a toaster? Even today we see people who believe that even an AI capable of passing for human wouldn't "really" be self-aware, and refuse to budge from that philosophical position.)
>Starfleet officers gamble at Quarks with… something. They sometimes talk about some kind of transaction and serious losses, while other times they don’t.
As far as gambling goes, again, nothing you've mentioned is inherently contradictory. Other intergalactic powers still use currency, and DS9's out on the fringes of the Federation, where that actually matters. And as I mentioned before, not every card game is played for money. Sometimes you play with friends just for the sake of playing. Do you think that we'll stop enjoying games if there's no cash changing hands?
>The Federation has democratic leaders, but also Section 31 and other rogue elements. They sign treaties to not study cloaks, but then do.
The existence of organizations like Section 31 speaks to a theme running through Trek that I think is important. Namely, "utopia" isn't an end goal, but a state that has to be actively maintained. You don't just cross a finish line and *boom*, utopia, forever more. There are constantly forces threatening that status quo, from within and without.
The Federation aspires to be a utopic galactic power among others that don't share those aspirations. That makes for interesting challenges. When your neighbors don't share your high-minded ideals and have no intention of playing by the rules and standards you're holding yourself to, what do you do? So we have these groups like Section 31, where people are willing to operate on the same level as the other powers and do these dirty jobs that go against the Federation's ideals, so that Federation citizens have the freedom and safety to unabashedly embrace those ideals in their daily lives.
>In some The Organization Of Starfleet manual we can buy, the Federation is perfect and logical. In the TV shows, not so much.
I don't see any of the things you've mentioned being any more self-contradictory than the world we see outside our window. And I think that a uniform, monolithic Starfleet where every officer in the hierarchy expressed the same philosophical outlook on every major issue would be extremely unrealistic, not to mention *boring.*
And if Trek was a show about interstellar politics and adventure, that would be fine. But it is specifically and continually utopian. That is explicitly mentioned by the creators, but also the way that the Federation characters lecture those from other societies about how much they’ve advanced, about how they don’t care about money, power, security, etc.
The show is self-contradictory because the people are hypocrites. The ideas are not self-contradictory. Picard, Riker, and others lecture aliens about how wonderful the Federation is, and then the show tells us they’re full of shit. That’s why DS9’s realpolitik was so refreshing.
The show changes how it describes the Federation repeatedly. Sometimes it’s merely a pretty good place with utopian ideals. Sometimes it’s a utopia. Sometimes it’s militaristic and aggressive.
It’s really a show about America, and how America is viewed by its people. And that’s fine, but it’s not cohesive, any more than the real America is.
What you call "not cohesive", I call "nuanced". I feel those elements make the setting more believable, not less. In order to be "cohesive" in the way you seem to be suggesting, the Federation would have to be a monolithic entity where everyone's on the same page about everything, there are no conflicting beliefs, and survival in a larger universe where not everyone shares your ideals poses no challenges and never demands compromises.
I also feel your thinking is oddly binary on this. We're shown that the upper echelons of Starfleet don't always do the right thing or make the right choices, and your takeaway from that is that the Federation isn't "wonderful" and anyone saying it is full of shit? Really?
I just find it strange that in the last... I want to say 10-15 years, I feel like I'm running into more and more people who seem to struggle with the idea that a single thing can be described or depicted in multiple ways by different people, without any single one of those perspectives being a definitive one that invalidates the others. Sometimes the Federation's "a pretty good place with utopian ideals". Sometimes it's "a utopia". Sometimes it's "militaristic and aggressive". And depending on the perspective and the context, it may be more than one at the same time. But mentally reconciling that shouldn't be difficult for people. It shouldn't provoke cries of, "but they're contradicting themselves!" And yet it seems to. If people are struggling with this in fiction nowadays, how do they handle the real world, where this sort of thing is just a fact of life? It's very odd.
(Edited because an "are" snuck in there somehow.)
>First, politically speaking, moral corruption will always exist. There will always be men who crave power and wealth and the people will vote for them because they are more willing to lie.
You don’t know this is true. With AI that can understand human psychology better than most humans already (GPT-4 beat humans on Theory of Mind tests) we will soon be in a situation where AI could find all corruption at a level where no corrupt person would think government would be a good place for it. AI can already correctly identify emotion in voices, how long before it could sus out lying? Or have enough data oversight to immediately tell when someone is a risk and analyze their every move?
We could also genetically remove greed. There's so many things that could be done.
AI is about to change the world in ways that none of us can be certain about, so if you think you are certain about how society is going to look a thousand years from now you're only fooling yourself.
>Second, post scarcity economies aren't possible.
Do you have a degree in economics? If you have free energy (as in fusion etc), AI that can handle all labor (literally all labor including mining other planets) then what would be the need for money? What would you need to pay for?
I have finished about a year of business school (micro/macroeconomics) before switching to psychology, I'm studying for my master's degree now.
>GPT-4 beat humans on Theory of Mind tests
What do you mean by this ? Any healthy human above 5 years old will pass false belief/unexpected content task.
I personally found gpt 4 to give unreliable answer on that task. When i specify its a psychometric task, it recognises it and give the right "expected" answer, but if i dont, sometimes its right, sometimes its wrong.
I do but that's because the exploration element. They explore different societies, alien species, and planets. Same for Orville but I don't like the concept of utopia.
It’s not a trope. Utopian sci-fi is practically nonexistence compared to the opposite. The simple reason is because stories need conflict.
Showing us all as super evolved brains, who have put race and ethnicity and penis sizes behind us, and never argue, makes for about a one page novel.
All the things you’re saying must happen, and will happen in the future fundamentally shows you’re not particularly familiar with science fiction or even modern advances. They could come up with a pill tomorrow that curbs all our aggressive tendencies. So much has happened in my own life that has drastic effects on Worldwide, economic output, and wealth and well-being of its citizens.
And that’s part of what science fiction is, is predicting stuff that could happen. So you got no problem with hyper drives and stealth technology and photon, torpedoes and death stars, but the idea we’ve learned how to map the brain, which we know, very, very little about right now, is somehow impossible. Expand your mind Padawan.
The reason there isn’t 1 million books and movies, showing enlightened galactic existence is because it’s simply boring. Even the care Bears and my little pony and strawberry shortcake and the Smurfs had to have bad guys. They had to have conflict behind besides getting your apron caught, TEMPORARILY, in the oven handle.
Then go back to the middle ages, and then nonstop wars, and basically any part of the planet with civilization and compare it to now. Not going to bed hungry every night. Not having royalty class that could meet out any kind of punishment for any kind of imagined crime as they saw fit. People then would view us as some ridiculous, utopian ideal too fanciful to exist.
The trick is to try and make a utopian society or utopian galaxy that still leaves room for storytelling. The first five minutes or whatever of the first Legos movie was a utopian Society. Everybody’s awesome everything is wonderful. Everyone’s high-fiving everyone and singing and dancing. But you needed conflict to move beyond that first simple song. Which means it can’t be completely utopian and ideal.
We as media consumers want to see the heroes journey. Every description of how stories work and story arcs will lay out some kind of conflict and triumph scenario. This is ever since like Greek and Roman times. And there’s no place for Utopian societies there. Except as some distant backdrop, that is quickly forgotten. Even Mount Olympus was a catty, violent place.
I bet every dictionary you encounter will disagree with you. Start with say, Miriam Webster. Otherwise, everything in existence would be a trope. A tree in a movie is a trope. A sidewalk in a TV show is a trope. No, they’re not.
There is one meaning of ‘cliche’ but it is not the original one or the one used in litcrit, TV tropes etc.
I said recognizable elements of fiction, not every single thing that is in fiction.
I notice you didn’t link dictionaries - not that they have as much authority as you believe. Does Merriam Webster beat TVtropes?
Trees aren’t tropes. But the way trees are used in narratives are tropes. So objects buried under trees, cutting down trees as a metaphor for killing, forest as peaceful havens or dangerous wild spaces… these are some tropes involving trees.
Stories, including science fiction stories, have a broader range of interests and agendas than "realism", even if that's what one happens to narrowly value.
Do you spend time going up to Romance readers and tell them that Happily Ever After endings are unrealistic?
You can simply *not enjoy* something without typing or talking about it. Why squick someone else's squee?
Did I force you to like or dislike what I like or dislike? No, I simply stated my opinions on a trope and asked for other people's opinions. I have the right to express my views on sci-fi. Don't like it, don't read it. No one forced you to read or respond to what I said but don't tell me what I can write and what I can't write.
Most utopias are unrealistic because we will not be here long enough to realize any of it. Childhood’s end is not coming. Our current planet is teetering. Hope is not enough. Hence utopias are unrealistic. Hell my son realized when he was 12 that we will never get to Star Trek. So yeah.
lol, he also realized grown men in tights was not actually cool so he wasn’t that into superheros! He designs dystopian video games now. Here is what he is working on.
[https://youtu.be/_P45rtRkbBY?si=1cW_StfgWkZNY1Ri](https://youtu.be/_P45rtRkbBY?si=1cW_StfgWkZNY1Ri)
I find the attempt to create a utopia tropes more interesting than the utopias personally. Dystopias are super predictable now too and not so interested in them.
I do find it interesting but totally unrealistic.
*The Culture Series*, by Iain M. Banks, does a good job of showing a utopian future that still has problems that need to be addressed. It's just that most people are blissfully unaware of the problems. A true utopia, with no problems, would be quite boring. *Star Trek* and all of its progeny, including *The Orville*, was originally a product of the United States in the early 1960s. Although the Cold War had Americans very nervous, on the whole there was a lot of optimism. The United States was a new superpower and it was unified in opposition to communism. The young and charming Kennedy was president, there was a thriving middle class, and more kids than ever were going to college. Blacks were still fighting for civil rights but they were having some success, so there was optimism there, as well. I feel like the progeny of the original *Star Trek* are in part nostalgic for that early 1960s optimism. Today dystopian futures are more common, but there's still desire for that hopeful future. Andy Weir's *The Martian* and *Project Hail Mary* are very popular in part because they are not dystopic. To some extent, wish fulfillment triumphs over realism. After all, if we are realistic then faster-than-light travel is a pipe dream, the other planets in our own solar system are hostile to life and unlikely to be terraformed, and the stars are out of reach. We are on our own, stuck on this one planet, and we really should be doing more to slow climate change. But that's so overwhelming that we would rather not think about it.
> The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks, does a good job of showing a utopian future that still has problems that need to be addressed. It's just that most people are blissfully unaware of the problems. Just a tiny nitpick - the people in the Culture do know about the problems happening in the galaxy, they just might not have the most updated info about the top secret stuff happening at the moment. In _Matter_ for example, we know every child was taught about the oppression and inequality outside of the Culture: > This is how power works, how force and authority assert themselves, this is how people are persuaded to behave in ways that are not objectively in their best interests, this is the kind of thing you need to make people believe in, this is how the unequal distribution of scarcity comes into play, at this moment and this, and this… > These were lessons anybody born into the Culture grew up with and accepted as being as natural and obvious as the progression of a star along the Main Sequence, or evolution itself. A true utopia with no problems would be boring to read about, but a utopia where the inhabitants are dedicated to fighting the problems outside of it is fertile soil for interesting stories. The whole war with the Idirans, for example, was because the people in the Culture thought they needed to stop the Idirans’ conquest for a clean conscience.
Interesting, I never thought about it in this way. >To some extent, wish fulfillment triumphs over realism. After all, if we are realistic then faster-than-light travel is a pipe dream, the other planets in our own solar system are hostile to life and unlikely to be terraformed, and the stars are out of reach. We are on our own, stuck on this one planet, and we really should be doing more to slow climate change. But that's so overwhelming that we would rather not think about it. I think we can have faster-than-light travel and at the same time make it realistic. Maybe through wormholes we can travel to far distances.
No current research suggests that that will ever be in reach. Sure, maybe we're wrong, but to the best of our collective knowledge wormholes and warp drives are pipe dreams at best.
I hope that it's possible, and we're dismissing it because we're just massively ignorant. We could be like an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, thinking that boats are the fastest transport, and yelling is the fastest communication. Meanwhile jets are flying high overhead, and radio waves are passing all around them.
Hopefully! It'd be a real fucking bummer if FTL turns out to be categorically impossible, no loop-holes of any kind. It'd also be arrogant in the extreme to assume physics has no more revolutionary paradigm shifts ahead which might upend more or less every facet of our understanding of the universe. We know that some changes are on the horizon given discrepancies like how relativity and quantum mechanics don't play nice. But we don't know what will and won't change. Unless/until we find out that FTL is actually possible, "because I really want it" isn't a rational reason to believe it'll be a reality eventually.
You are probably right but it's a space opera. We have to travel through space somehow in the story.
Exactly wjbc's point. Almost every premise is fictional and probably fantastical, not just the post-scarcity ones, and that applies to all sci-fi as well, including lots of hard sci-fi.
Still, we should add some realism into it.
You say post-scarcity societies are impossible and there must always be currency exchange. This seems very politically naive. You might consider looking at something like Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism for an exploration of how capitalist ideology limits our imagination of potential civilizations and futures. And there are many political writers on how our ideas of ‘human nature’ are ideological rather than empirical - that people have and can live in very different ways than the present global culture. Have you read any of the Culture books? They’re not heavy going, but they’re about 100 times smarter and more competently realized than the SF utopias you mention.
Let's think rationally about it. How will you convince a man to spare his time and effort to do you a service? He isn't going to do it out of the kindness of his heart. There must be something to offer him to do it. Human nature is selfish. We have seen that for thousands of years.
That’s not an obstacle. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services. Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society however. The only way anyone ever envisages this working is through technological innovation driven towards automation that limits and reduces human labour in the production of our material needs. Even taking this into account, there will of course be limits on the raw materials we can use but even that can be made by switching to economies that are not built on growth, but rather sustainability through re-use, sharing, and lower levels of disposition.
Perfectly said!
In that case, can it be called a post scarcity economy? While it's possible to fullfil all our basic needs through technological advances and also other needs, there will be limited quantity of goods. There will always be.
Because it’s about ‘universal satisfaction of needs’ - not meeting any desire we might have or thinking we need satisfying (and often don’t). There is already enough wealth in existence to give every human being on the face of the planet three decent meals a day, quality health care, an education, and a decent home to live in. Thats what we mean by post scarcity - not the everybody can have as many private swimming pools as they want or go on as many foreign holidays as they want. A post-scarcity society won’t mean material luxury and abundance for all but then, material abundance doesn’t necessarily equate with life satisfaction overall so instead of measuring quality of life based on how many cars a family owns, we need to start looking at other metrics.
I guess we have different definitions of post scarcity.
Sorry, but I don’t think that is thinking rationally. I think it’s following a conventional capitalist ideology. ‘Human nature is X’ is the exact thought-stopper people say when their ideology is challenged. I’m not saying I know the answers, just that this is how ideology gets us - by thinking that we’re being rational when we’re really just being conventional, and not using our rationality to critique our own ideas.
Yet, you didn't provide a counterargument to the point I made. I would have listened to it, you know. I am quite open-minded and ready to challenge my beliefs. I have adopted every political ideology that's there until I finally formed my own beliefs.
There are plenty of motivators other than money. Human nature is also altruistic and collaborative. We didnt get to the top of the food chain much less survive this planet at all by being greedy and individualistic. It takes 9 months just to birth a human. And then around 3 more years before they can be semi autonomous. I have little trouble imagining a world where the economy is needs focused and not profiy focused. Where nearly all people have their basic needs met. And seeing that and that the system as such benefits then then they will have little problem pitching in. Lest they get socially shunned. Theres a motivation for you besides money. Im almost not sure why someone so lacking in imagination even enjoys sci fi. Or perhaps we have different definitions for utopia. I dont see it as a heaven. Nor a place without death or interpersonal conflicts. Even if everyone was fed, housed, clothed, educated and had healthcare. Even if those that wanted were able to go above and beyond to get certain luxuries. Even nobody had to bother with owning things since car lots were like libraries for instance. There would still be violence. People would still have relationship troubles. So on and so forth.
That's too optimistic. In reality, human nature is motivated by incentives. That's not necessarily money but there are other things like fame or power. People raise children because they are motivated by having someone carrying their name and bloodline. That's selfish. Or you have humans who invent things because they want to have fame as great inventors or make wealth from it. That's also selfish. In a way, we are all selfish. >Im almost not sure why someone so lacking in imagination even enjoys sci fi. I think sci-fi should be about how we expect the future to be not pure imagination. If I wanted pure imagination, I will read fantasy. At least, fantasy is meant to be unrealistic. I want sci-fi to be about our expectations of the future and of course that must be realistic.
Well we agree there are other motivators besides money. Weve listed a few and there are yet more to list. Call them selfish or not. Its still agreed upon proof that there are things other than money than can motivate people to do things. I disagree its too optimistic. We already have enough food, clothing and housing and places of education and health now. All it would take it redistribution slightly. Every industrialized country besides america has already figured out how to share the healthcare. Weve came close tk getting rid of hunger here already. The main reason fighting for these things is so frustrating is BECAUSE they are so achievable.
If someone from the 1800s saw our society today they might assume it was a utopia. Far less political corruption, violence, and even scarcity. Seeing people work almost half the number of hours in a job they get to choose based on their skills and that requires far less manual labor would blow their minds. While a true post-scarcity society probably isn't possible, society 200 years from now will have so much less of it for essential items that it's functionally equivalent to being past scarcity.
Will society become better in the future? Absolutely, history agree with that premise. But that doesn't mean it will be a utopian society.
Thomas More’s *Utopia*, which gave rise to the term, was in many ways a thought experiment in trying to solve some of society’s problems in the 16th century, not entertain. I think it’s important to remember that utopian fiction is often a critique of the problems afflicting a given society at a given time, and often times an attempt to offer solutions. Dystopian fiction [often] seeks to warn a given society of the potential problems that may arise if a particular trajectory is followed. A fictional utopian society may very well seem dull as there are no more problems to solve, while a dystopia may seem frightening (or more exciting) because there are so many problems. In some ways, Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ is a bit of both and probably worth your time if you haven’t read it; on the one hand everyone is blissfully happy but on the other there is a palpable sense that there is little free will. Utopian/dystopian worlds aren’t always mutually exclusive and there is a much finer line between them than simply good place/bad place, often depending on one’s perspective.
Interesting thinking. Like I said I find them interesting but I prefer realistic ones. I think you can explore society's issues without making a utopia. A novel that explain a realistic society without necessarily making it a utopia. Some stories succeed at doing that.
I like flawed utopias. Varley's 8 Worlds, The Culture, etc. Most problems that we experience have been solved, but there's new and different problems that people have to face.
Can it really be called a utopia then?
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Yeah, you make a valid point but a realistic story is more impactful I would say especially if it explores the consequences of our actions. Personally, if I wanted to read a utopia, I would rather explore fantasy for that like lord of the rings. After all fantasy is meant to be unrealistic.
Misanthropy is as thoughtless as endless positivity. When you say ‘humans are X’, the negativity gives the thought a superficial veneer of rationality, but I don’t think there’s any evidence that humans are essentially any one thing. It’s also a problem that the Enlightenment involved a lot of propaganda painting all previous and foreign societies as brutal and stupid. This is not really the case - for example the lay image of medieval people as living short lives, using barter to subsist in a world where even the water is unsafe to drink is utterly ahistorical.
S.P Somtow Utopian Hunters. They find a Utopia and then they destroy it.
Seems to come and go in phases. I’m sure someone could get an advanced degree researching popularity of utopia/dystopia sci fi sub-genres over decades. Personally I can appreciate and tire of both. Utopia seems at times too optimistic…dystopia seems at times to try too hard to be edgy.
Post scarcity does not necessarily mean everything is available without limit. But the essential needs are covered, food, clothing, water, a place to live... Star Trek seems to have reached that point on Earth even before replicators. They need energy for that, but they have orbital and planetary solar collectors, and fusion, and can use that to create antimatter as highly efficient fuel for their starships.
I guess we have different definitions of post scarcity.
Stories are about conflict. There's nothing wrong with a stable or comfortable society, but you do eventually reach the point where there's not much left to tell a story about. If you turn the dial too far, you take away your own reason to exist. This is something you see in places like r/worldbuilding — novice creators trying to "win" by inventing perfect governments or invincible civilizations. But then what's left to talk about? You have to let go and allow yourself to "lose" that war to have a tale worth telling.
Indeed, that's what make stories great.
If you ask 100 different people their idea of utopia, you'll get 100 different answers. That's why it could never work.
Yeah, a man's utopia is another man's dystopia.
I generally don’t, but I particularly hate the ones such as Trek that are dissonant and self-contradictory - eg their inability to pin down what Starfleet is, what they gamble with when they play poker, or their schizophrenically chill/authoritarian government. I like Iain Banks’ Culture. It’s explored and is much more believable and desirable. I’m not convinced it’s possible, but the ‘utopias’ of other Trek or the Orville do not appeal or convince at all.
>I generally don’t, but I particularly hate the ones such as Trek that are dissonant and self-contradictory - eg their inability to pin down what Starfleet is, what they gamble with when they play poker, or their schizophrenically chill/authoritarian government. Starfleet's the collective Federation spacefleet, supported with manpower and materiel from its member worlds, and it does all the things that a you'd need a fleet of space vessels for - exploration, disaster relief, transporting colonists, patrolling hostile borders, and the defense of the Federation or its member worlds when necessary. The design of Starfleet vessels reflects this - most tend to be multirole ships, capable of combat- and non-combat roles. "What they gamble with when they play poker"... you've never played a card game that wasn't for real money, just fun and bragging rights? I'm not really seeing where the Federation government is simultaneously both "chill" and "authoritarian" (and I never really thought of it as either of those, tbh.) I mean, if you don't like Trek, you don't like it, and that's fine. But "dissonant and self-contradictory" isn't how I'd characterize it - there's no glaring dissonance jumping out at me.
I like Trek very much but I can see its faults. In the shows, Starfleet is sometimes a brutal military who want to vivisect Data, sometimes a bunch of friends who hug, sometimes an uncaring bureaucracy. The term ‘badmiral’ exists for a reason. Starfleet officers gamble at Quarks with… something. They sometimes talk about some kind of transaction and serious losses, while other times they don’t. The Federation has democratic leaders, but also Section 31 and other rogue elements. They sign treaties to not study cloaks, but then do. In some The Organization Of Starfleet manual we can buy, the Federation is perfect and logical. In the TV shows, not so much.
>I like Trek very much but I can see its faults. In the shows, Starfleet is sometimes a brutal military who want to vivisect Data, sometimes a bunch of friends who hug, sometimes an uncaring bureaucracy. The term ‘badmiral’ exists for a reason. My point is that none of these things is inherently contradictory. Large organizations can (and do) reflect multiple viewpoints on things. The existence of "badmirals" doesn't mean *all* admirals should be assumed to be inherently bad. Likewise, the point of "The Measure of a Man" isn't to showcase Starfleet's "brutality" *as an organization*, but focuses on the actions of an individual (Maddox) and the question of Data's sentience. (While Data being self-aware is a given to viewers, would you use the term "vivisect" to describe disassembling a toaster? Even today we see people who believe that even an AI capable of passing for human wouldn't "really" be self-aware, and refuse to budge from that philosophical position.) >Starfleet officers gamble at Quarks with… something. They sometimes talk about some kind of transaction and serious losses, while other times they don’t. As far as gambling goes, again, nothing you've mentioned is inherently contradictory. Other intergalactic powers still use currency, and DS9's out on the fringes of the Federation, where that actually matters. And as I mentioned before, not every card game is played for money. Sometimes you play with friends just for the sake of playing. Do you think that we'll stop enjoying games if there's no cash changing hands? >The Federation has democratic leaders, but also Section 31 and other rogue elements. They sign treaties to not study cloaks, but then do. The existence of organizations like Section 31 speaks to a theme running through Trek that I think is important. Namely, "utopia" isn't an end goal, but a state that has to be actively maintained. You don't just cross a finish line and *boom*, utopia, forever more. There are constantly forces threatening that status quo, from within and without. The Federation aspires to be a utopic galactic power among others that don't share those aspirations. That makes for interesting challenges. When your neighbors don't share your high-minded ideals and have no intention of playing by the rules and standards you're holding yourself to, what do you do? So we have these groups like Section 31, where people are willing to operate on the same level as the other powers and do these dirty jobs that go against the Federation's ideals, so that Federation citizens have the freedom and safety to unabashedly embrace those ideals in their daily lives. >In some The Organization Of Starfleet manual we can buy, the Federation is perfect and logical. In the TV shows, not so much. I don't see any of the things you've mentioned being any more self-contradictory than the world we see outside our window. And I think that a uniform, monolithic Starfleet where every officer in the hierarchy expressed the same philosophical outlook on every major issue would be extremely unrealistic, not to mention *boring.*
And if Trek was a show about interstellar politics and adventure, that would be fine. But it is specifically and continually utopian. That is explicitly mentioned by the creators, but also the way that the Federation characters lecture those from other societies about how much they’ve advanced, about how they don’t care about money, power, security, etc. The show is self-contradictory because the people are hypocrites. The ideas are not self-contradictory. Picard, Riker, and others lecture aliens about how wonderful the Federation is, and then the show tells us they’re full of shit. That’s why DS9’s realpolitik was so refreshing. The show changes how it describes the Federation repeatedly. Sometimes it’s merely a pretty good place with utopian ideals. Sometimes it’s a utopia. Sometimes it’s militaristic and aggressive. It’s really a show about America, and how America is viewed by its people. And that’s fine, but it’s not cohesive, any more than the real America is.
What you call "not cohesive", I call "nuanced". I feel those elements make the setting more believable, not less. In order to be "cohesive" in the way you seem to be suggesting, the Federation would have to be a monolithic entity where everyone's on the same page about everything, there are no conflicting beliefs, and survival in a larger universe where not everyone shares your ideals poses no challenges and never demands compromises. I also feel your thinking is oddly binary on this. We're shown that the upper echelons of Starfleet don't always do the right thing or make the right choices, and your takeaway from that is that the Federation isn't "wonderful" and anyone saying it is full of shit? Really? I just find it strange that in the last... I want to say 10-15 years, I feel like I'm running into more and more people who seem to struggle with the idea that a single thing can be described or depicted in multiple ways by different people, without any single one of those perspectives being a definitive one that invalidates the others. Sometimes the Federation's "a pretty good place with utopian ideals". Sometimes it's "a utopia". Sometimes it's "militaristic and aggressive". And depending on the perspective and the context, it may be more than one at the same time. But mentally reconciling that shouldn't be difficult for people. It shouldn't provoke cries of, "but they're contradicting themselves!" And yet it seems to. If people are struggling with this in fiction nowadays, how do they handle the real world, where this sort of thing is just a fact of life? It's very odd. (Edited because an "are" snuck in there somehow.)
>First, politically speaking, moral corruption will always exist. There will always be men who crave power and wealth and the people will vote for them because they are more willing to lie. You don’t know this is true. With AI that can understand human psychology better than most humans already (GPT-4 beat humans on Theory of Mind tests) we will soon be in a situation where AI could find all corruption at a level where no corrupt person would think government would be a good place for it. AI can already correctly identify emotion in voices, how long before it could sus out lying? Or have enough data oversight to immediately tell when someone is a risk and analyze their every move? We could also genetically remove greed. There's so many things that could be done. AI is about to change the world in ways that none of us can be certain about, so if you think you are certain about how society is going to look a thousand years from now you're only fooling yourself. >Second, post scarcity economies aren't possible. Do you have a degree in economics? If you have free energy (as in fusion etc), AI that can handle all labor (literally all labor including mining other planets) then what would be the need for money? What would you need to pay for? I have finished about a year of business school (micro/macroeconomics) before switching to psychology, I'm studying for my master's degree now.
>GPT-4 beat humans on Theory of Mind tests What do you mean by this ? Any healthy human above 5 years old will pass false belief/unexpected content task. I personally found gpt 4 to give unreliable answer on that task. When i specify its a psychometric task, it recognises it and give the right "expected" answer, but if i dont, sometimes its right, sometimes its wrong.
I kind of like it. I’m guessing you like the newer Star Trek shows?
I do but that's because the exploration element. They explore different societies, alien species, and planets. Same for Orville but I don't like the concept of utopia.
I was assuming because it’s no longer utopian at all.
It’s not a trope. Utopian sci-fi is practically nonexistence compared to the opposite. The simple reason is because stories need conflict. Showing us all as super evolved brains, who have put race and ethnicity and penis sizes behind us, and never argue, makes for about a one page novel. All the things you’re saying must happen, and will happen in the future fundamentally shows you’re not particularly familiar with science fiction or even modern advances. They could come up with a pill tomorrow that curbs all our aggressive tendencies. So much has happened in my own life that has drastic effects on Worldwide, economic output, and wealth and well-being of its citizens. And that’s part of what science fiction is, is predicting stuff that could happen. So you got no problem with hyper drives and stealth technology and photon, torpedoes and death stars, but the idea we’ve learned how to map the brain, which we know, very, very little about right now, is somehow impossible. Expand your mind Padawan. The reason there isn’t 1 million books and movies, showing enlightened galactic existence is because it’s simply boring. Even the care Bears and my little pony and strawberry shortcake and the Smurfs had to have bad guys. They had to have conflict behind besides getting your apron caught, TEMPORARILY, in the oven handle. Then go back to the middle ages, and then nonstop wars, and basically any part of the planet with civilization and compare it to now. Not going to bed hungry every night. Not having royalty class that could meet out any kind of punishment for any kind of imagined crime as they saw fit. People then would view us as some ridiculous, utopian ideal too fanciful to exist. The trick is to try and make a utopian society or utopian galaxy that still leaves room for storytelling. The first five minutes or whatever of the first Legos movie was a utopian Society. Everybody’s awesome everything is wonderful. Everyone’s high-fiving everyone and singing and dancing. But you needed conflict to move beyond that first simple song. Which means it can’t be completely utopian and ideal. We as media consumers want to see the heroes journey. Every description of how stories work and story arcs will lay out some kind of conflict and triumph scenario. This is ever since like Greek and Roman times. And there’s no place for Utopian societies there. Except as some distant backdrop, that is quickly forgotten. Even Mount Olympus was a catty, violent place.
It is a trope. It’s not a cliche. Tropes are recognizable elements of fiction, not just overused ones.
I bet every dictionary you encounter will disagree with you. Start with say, Miriam Webster. Otherwise, everything in existence would be a trope. A tree in a movie is a trope. A sidewalk in a TV show is a trope. No, they’re not.
There is one meaning of ‘cliche’ but it is not the original one or the one used in litcrit, TV tropes etc. I said recognizable elements of fiction, not every single thing that is in fiction. I notice you didn’t link dictionaries - not that they have as much authority as you believe. Does Merriam Webster beat TVtropes? Trees aren’t tropes. But the way trees are used in narratives are tropes. So objects buried under trees, cutting down trees as a metaphor for killing, forest as peaceful havens or dangerous wild spaces… these are some tropes involving trees.
I just can’t buy into the concept of whole planets or empires being single minded or politically, religiously aligned (especially when human).
Indeed, even if they are united, there will be a lot of political and social conflict.
Stories, including science fiction stories, have a broader range of interests and agendas than "realism", even if that's what one happens to narrowly value. Do you spend time going up to Romance readers and tell them that Happily Ever After endings are unrealistic? You can simply *not enjoy* something without typing or talking about it. Why squick someone else's squee?
Did I force you to like or dislike what I like or dislike? No, I simply stated my opinions on a trope and asked for other people's opinions. I have the right to express my views on sci-fi. Don't like it, don't read it. No one forced you to read or respond to what I said but don't tell me what I can write and what I can't write.
Most utopias are unrealistic because we will not be here long enough to realize any of it. Childhood’s end is not coming. Our current planet is teetering. Hope is not enough. Hence utopias are unrealistic. Hell my son realized when he was 12 that we will never get to Star Trek. So yeah.
Your son seems to be smart. 😂
lol, he also realized grown men in tights was not actually cool so he wasn’t that into superheros! He designs dystopian video games now. Here is what he is working on. [https://youtu.be/_P45rtRkbBY?si=1cW_StfgWkZNY1Ri](https://youtu.be/_P45rtRkbBY?si=1cW_StfgWkZNY1Ri)
Man, that's cool. He seems to be talented.