Post-Millennial Malaise

Inspired by a fleeting reference in the latest science essay by CRN's Chris Phoenix, I recently started re-reading Larry Niven's classic novel Ringworld. It must be two or three decades since I read the book, and revisiting it all these years later, I'm blown away once again by the novel's startling originality and by the "bigness" of its thinking.

This got me wondering: Where are all the big ideas in science fiction? Has the well gone dry?

When is the last time you read a new SF novel that wasn't either a retread of earlier ideas or a dystopian commentary on future (and present) decadence? As I scan back over my reading history, I can find several recent novels that I enjoyed quite a lot, but if I'm looking for the kind of huge thinking that characterizes the greatest SF writers, it seems in short supply today.

For me, the last truly great science fiction novel was Greg Egan's Diaspora (1998); that one can go alongside any of the early masterpieces from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, et alia. The only newer book that I might put in that category is John C. Wright's The Golden Age (2002). Before that, the best of cyberpunk -- Steel Beach, Holy Fire, etc. -- is great stuff, but remember, it's also 10-15 years old.

Maybe I'm just evincing some general curmudgeonliness or longing for the (non-existent) good ol' days, but I suspect there is more to it than that.

Consider this observation:

In William Gibson's 2003 novel Pattern Recognition, there is a line that alludes to, among other things, the plight of the science fiction writer in the early 21st century. "Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day," a marketing mogul theorizes, "one in which 'now' was of some greater duration."

So, perhaps we are experiencing a sort of collective post-millennial malaise, a contraction of imagination and energy stemming from the realization that we already are living in the future and it's not what we'd hoped for or expected.

Is it a coincidence that many of the forward-looking movements/groups that started up in the 1980s and 1990s seem to have run out of steam?

• The Extropy Institute has closed its virtual doors
• The Foresight Institute has gone through three presidents in three years and seems somewhat directionless
• We've heard reports of critical problems at Worldchanging, a group that we thought had much promise
• The Immortality Institute is not quite belly up, but is at best in a coma
• While still active, the World Transhumanist Association appears to have plateaued and can't find a way to get to the next level

Even here at CRN, we're wrestling with the challenge of how to get people excited enough about our work to get involved, stay involved, and actually accomplish tangible progress. It's not easy, and I think there may be some connection between the recent problems of future-focussed organizations and the evident lack of big ideas in modern science fiction.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Jan-Willem Bats]

Why would you say Imminst has gone comatose?

Aren't they growing anymore?

Thankfully Singinst is still going strong.

And considering the signals I receive from them, it's looking like they ain't quittin' anytime soon.

Same for the Mprize.

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Imminst is largely inactive; Singinst is doing well, but I know from speaking with people there that they are concerned about the ability to sustain growth in a post-millennial phase.

[Mike Wyldegod]

I don't believe it's a problem with the well drying up. I think there are numerous ideas out there that haven't been thought of or at least haven't been presented 'in that way before' so to speak. I think, no, I believe the problem with the genre writing markets is one of education.

The kids these days aren't allowed to think freely like we were just 15 and 20 years ago and in the previous decades. They are trained in schools to have a mindset that doesn't allow them to wonder or question anything anymore. They are told that there is one way to do things and it's the only way. I work with a girl that just graduated high school and she was having problems with someone on an issue with his PC. She couldn't figure out how to help him with his problem and when I told her to think outside the box and try a different approach, she actually said to me. "There is no box, what box are you talking about. His PC won't show any icons on the desktop anymore. There isn't any box."

She'd never even heard the phrase. Since the early 90s, kids have been trained by TV and music. There is no free thought anymore about things like the universe. "What if..." is a completely foreign concept to them. They know only American Idol and how to be a Rock Star. Fame and fortune, money and power rule their lives and there is nothing else.

The world needs a new run on Sciffy with a modern Robert Heinlein screaming to the masses about a used spacesuit that has travelled above and beyond, about stomach pouches and future histories and 6th columns and we get instead, new boy bands and drunken bimbos with a desperate need for attention. It's sad, but true. This nation has become automatic with the last two generations. They know only that they want to be famous and/or rich and damn everything else, that's the only end these days.

[Nato Welch]

Charles Stross, Neal Stephenson, and Cory Doctorow seem plenty big to me. Granted, Stephenson is now writing historical novels, and Doctorow and Stross are in the same boat with William Gibson on the whole SF-is-about-the-present kick, but there's enough material kicking around to keep me fired up, even if it's tough to push things up the exponential hill.

I don't presume to compare, though, since I'm not deeply familiar with earlier SF.

[Mark Finnern]

Hi Mike,

Even here at CRN, we're wrestling with the challenge of how to get people excited enough about our work to get involved, stay involved, and actually accomplish tangible progress.

One thing that Accelerating Change is bringing with it is a great deal of uncertainty. Where from one day to the next whole billion dollar companies are wiped out.

The consequences of this uncertainty is fear. Will I be able to feed my family tomorrow?

There is enormous riches to be had in the future, but the way to get there is steep and stony and to the left and to the right of it there is the deep canyon. Not very appealing.

The changes are coming fast and furious, the great liberator crackberry is creeping work into every nook and cranny of your life, even into the sanctuary of sitting on the loo.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt, not a good combination, and you are telling me that this is even accelerating? Get me off that train, immediately.

People are looking around to something they can hold on to, something that gives them grounding in this swell of change. One of these things to hold on to for many is religion, the meeting of the like-minded every Sunday gives the assurance that at the end everything will be fine.

One of the things that I hope to give people with the Future Salon is a place to meet and to envision a positive future and to realize, oh I am not alone, there are many more out there interested to help make this positive future a reality.

But even I get bugged down by my work and even though I have some really interesting people lined up, like Chris and you to present what is happening, I am too busy to pull it off every month I really think that the face to face meetings make a big difference.

Alas not enough time, that is also the problem with the science fiction books, would love to keep up to date with them and discover new ideas through them, but it is tough to squeeze them in. Sorry. (No Harry Potter either ;-)

Please keep it up, the world need people like you and Chris that ask the tough questions and try to find a solution that will work for all of us.

Thanks, Mark.

[Howard Lovy]

The future is not being written on the pages of SciFi novels anymore. The first rough draft is on the front page of every newspaper and in the mind of every journalist, blogger, politician, scientist and citizen who cares to lift his head and see.

The U.S. government bans all use of new embryonic stem cell lines for research. Scientists whine and complain and put on a show for the public. Meanwhile, they innovate their way around the problem. Embryonic stem cells will soon no longer be necessary in research.

The tides of fashion have pulled into the environmentalists' shore and big business and government play games of "greener than thou," yet march lock-step with agribusiness into a nonsensical ethanol economy. Global Warming solved. Wait ... no ... the voices of dissent were merely waiting until the tide came out again. Global warming perhaps not caused by humans? (Even some scientists not paid by the Bush administration thinks so.)

So, government bans are bad, yet drive innovation, so they are good. A scientific opinion is fact if enough of the culture believes it to be so ... until the belief falls out of fashion or is dropped out of sheer boredom ... A police state is peace, British Petroleum is green, left and right each support fascism (left in Iraq, right in the U.S.), the environment can be cleaned up through bumper stickers and rock concerts, and we all lived with Fred Flintstone and Dino just a few thousand years ago, sunscreen is dangerous nanotech while molecular manufacturing is impossible, therefore safe ...

I mean, you just can't make this shit up. Stranger than fiction. Welcome to the future, my friends.

Howard Lovy

[Jan-Willem Bats]

"Singinst is doing well, but I know from speaking with people there that they are concerned about the ability to sustain growth in a post-millennial phase."

Do they *need* to sustain growth?

A small group of dedicated people is usually what changes the world, right?

Not too long ago they teamed up with Ben Goertzel. Seems to me that, at least so far, they're doing fine... post-millenially speaking. ;)

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Thanks, everyone, for all the great comments!

Howard, that's a fascinating premise about today's SF being written by the news itself. But isn't that also part of what is causing the malaise that I described?

As you alluded to, and Mark Finnern basically stated, there is now a palpable sense for many of us of being involuntarily carried along. We're no longer looking out to sea and waiting for the future to arrive -- instead we're caught up in a tsunami as it sweeps us ahead inexorably. Alas, we find ourselves with no control over direction or outcome. Unable to influence the flow of future events (as we'd so long dreamed we might be), we're seized with dread. Did we fail somehow? What did we not see? And if we've lost hope of guiding the future, does that also mean we surrender our personal destinies to fate?

The horror. The horror.

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Mark wrote:

People are looking around to something they can hold on to, something that gives them grounding in this swell of change. One of these things to hold on to for many is religion, the meeting of the like-minded every Sunday gives the assurance that at the end everything will be fine.

Perhaps that's true in parts of the U.S. -- but it's my understanding that traditional religion has very little influence today in Europe, Canada, Russia, Brazil, China, India, Japan, etc. What are those people grasping onto instead?

[Kurt9]

You guys are wrong. There may be less "hard" SF these days. But the stuff being written today is quite good.

I recommend the "Revelation Space" series by Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap). This is some of the best SF I have read in 20 years.

I also recommend the "Commonwealth" series by Peter F. Hamilton (Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained). Peter is now writing his "Void" trilogy, which occurs 1500 years later in the "Commonwealth" univere.

[John B]

How about John Scalzi's great 2007 book, "Old Man's War" - stood lots of stereotypes on its head, IMO, and additionally is a GREAT read.

How about Larry Niven & Steve Barnes' "Saturn's Race" from 2001- one of the best technothrillers I've read in a long time with a truely novel villain.

While I'd not call it really HARD sci-fi, the "Fallen Dragon" series (2002 on) Peter Hamilton's in the process of is quite good.

*shrug* I dunno. I think there's plenty of good mindstretching stuff out there.

Jan Michael Bats - "Do they *need* to sustain growth?"

IMO - YES!!! Vehemently yes! While it takes a small number of dedicated people to affect change, those peole MUST maintain links to the rest of society. By far the easiest of those is via a large body of people who increase awareness of the 'small numbers' efforts/thoughts/goals/dreams/etc.

-JB

[Brian Wang]

Start a company/make a lot of money and make or fund part of the future.
See Google, SpaceX, Bigelow, Trialpha Energy, Samsung, ECD Ovonics, DFJ venture capital etc...
Also see Xprize, Aubrey De Grey - SENS, etc...

Talk and write about it but also more action.

[Jan-Willem Bats]

"While it takes a small number of dedicated people to affect change, those peole MUST maintain links to the rest of society"

I do not see growth and linkmaintainance as the same...

[Athena]

Like mainstream fiction, science fiction has entered its malaise stage. Some of it is a sign of our particular times, some of it the inevitable aftermath of the genre becoming middle-aged, if you like. There is no question that large-scale space opera is no longer fashionable, nor the "new wave" social concerns. Cyberpunk, in particular, focuses on the near future on earth.

These are broad observations, and SF authors exist that still operate outside these boundaries. However, throw in sequelitis and the devolution of editors into "book aquisition managers" and you won't have too much deviation from a rather uniform norm.

[AdvancedAtheist]

Regarding the Extropy Institute's closing last year, I joked at the time that it sounded like the Extropians had said "Poof! Extropianism doesn't exist any more."

Seriously, though, I suspect a middle-aged reality check has come into play. Many if not most of the long-time Extropians have reached their 40's or 50's by now, with no singularity in sight, much less radical life extension. They realize that they'll have to make a living the hard way and face declining health and death (with cryonic suspension for those who've arranged for it) after all.

[Michael Anissimov]

Hey Mike, great post. The Golden Age... I'm telling ya! I consider it better than Diaspora, and maybe one day I'll lay out in detail why, but that alone convinces me sci-fi isn't dead quite yet.

It may just be that we've already imagined up all the big ideas in futurism that can be imagined with the human brain. The next part is actually creating it and fleshing out the specifics.

I wouldn't say it's linked to the challenges faced by some transhumanist organizations, but speaking as someone who's been involved closely in SIAI and Lifeboat, stuff has been speeding up all along and is continuing to accelerate. ImmInst has primarily turned into a supplement-oriented forum, and is comatose because Bruce now puts all his efforts towards SIAI. But if you look on Myspace and Facebook you see lots of people still talk about ImmInst.

SIAI is working to scale to the millions of dollars a year level it needs, so if it ain't there yet, of course people like Tyler are going to be concerned.

I just got a flyer from Foresight in the mail, their roadmap unveiling is going to be a big, big deal with lots of huge names. It will help validate CRN's work.

WTA has plateaued because the real action is in the specific efforts, not an umbrella organization. James is focusing on the IEET because he knows that's what works.

[Andreas Beer]

Hi,

i am like you eager to find some good and new "big picture science fiction", although i rather call it "society fiction". One of the best books in that area is Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" and "Fall of Hyperion", but these are also more than 15 years old. I think it's time for them to be realized as movies, so that a new generation of future fiction authors will be inspired.

bye