I agree with Stross's admonition, "always be wary of SF writers bearing ideas", and believe it doubly-so when they are opining on actual science, social science, & politics – areas where understanding may not correlate, and may even anti-correlate, with the imaginative talents that make a good science fiction author.
Technologists inspired by SF, even dystopian SF, don't want the dystopia, but the other advances pictured with the abuses or problems elided or checked.
And, having seen one or more renditions of the dystopic aspects, have extra confidence (sometimes but not always misplaced) that by referencing & even popularizing the inspirational works, more people will work on a better version of what was depicted.
Even dystopic fiction, and cautionary talks likes Stross's here, are thus often, operationally, accelerative. "Well, now we've read the warning insert, & recommended it to everyone who'll listen, let's assemble this stuff without all those foreseeable mistakes."
(Compare: Truffaut's observation: "It is impossible to make an anti-war film." The mere exercise of converting it to a narrative, in that medium, creates an artifact that many people, & time, tends to transform into a glorification of related themes & extremes.)
Stasis where we are now, without radical new efficiencies (tech), would lead to a relatively short & nasty confined run for the human race. (And that's if it were even possible, which it's not without an oppressive/suppressive unitary world government.)
Degrowth and/or a return to a mythic nostalgic pastoralism would kill billions. (And is equally impossible without an oppressive/suppressive unitary world government.)
Even socialism/communism draws heavily from the hand-wavy extrapolative imaginings of Marx – a political economy science fiction writer, whose historical determinism prefigured 'dark singularitarian' Eliezer Yudkowsky's certainty "we're all gonna die". (Neither of these totalizing visions seem to yield much when the real world & real history prove more complicated.)
It's up-or-out for humanity – and so many people realizing that is why science fiction is more popular than ever, wherever it falls on the utopic-dystopic spectrum, as our best guide to finding the sweet spots, & avoiding the foreseeable problems, of a big and ever-changing future.
Technologists inspired by SF, even dystopian SF, don't want the dystopia, but the other advances pictured with the abuses or problems elided or checked.
And, having seen one or more renditions of the dystopic aspects, have extra confidence (sometimes but not always misplaced) that by referencing & even popularizing the inspirational works, more people will work on a better version of what was depicted.
Even dystopic fiction, and cautionary talks likes Stross's here, are thus often, operationally, accelerative. "Well, now we've read the warning insert, & recommended it to everyone who'll listen, let's assemble this stuff without all those foreseeable mistakes."
(Compare: Truffaut's observation: "It is impossible to make an anti-war film." The mere exercise of converting it to a narrative, in that medium, creates an artifact that many people, & time, tends to transform into a glorification of related themes & extremes.)
Stasis where we are now, without radical new efficiencies (tech), would lead to a relatively short & nasty confined run for the human race. (And that's if it were even possible, which it's not without an oppressive/suppressive unitary world government.)
Degrowth and/or a return to a mythic nostalgic pastoralism would kill billions. (And is equally impossible without an oppressive/suppressive unitary world government.)
Even socialism/communism draws heavily from the hand-wavy extrapolative imaginings of Marx – a political economy science fiction writer, whose historical determinism prefigured 'dark singularitarian' Eliezer Yudkowsky's certainty "we're all gonna die". (Neither of these totalizing visions seem to yield much when the real world & real history prove more complicated.)
It's up-or-out for humanity – and so many people realizing that is why science fiction is more popular than ever, wherever it falls on the utopic-dystopic spectrum, as our best guide to finding the sweet spots, & avoiding the foreseeable problems, of a big and ever-changing future.