I am not especially fond of this. Reactions, in no particular order:
1) Pulling Ayn Rand in just to bash on her is both a stretch to what might be called science fiction and reeks of simply burning an effigy.
2) I think we're finally at the tipping point where the left has switched from relentlessly working some kind of reference to Trump into their ongoing outrage, or simply as a tribe-signaling device (see "Trump Derangement Syndrome") and on to the injection of Musk. Call it "Conservation of Goldstein."
3) Mentions Gernsback and not the most excellent sci-fi story "The Gernsback Continuum"? Poor showing.
4) Cory Doctorow's feelings about "The Cold Equations" are a real froth-fest and reek of a different sort of irrational optimism, the avoidance of what are called "lifeboat politics." I would avoid citing him on that particular issue.
5) Banging on Campbell like that, also tacky A) given that psi powers were absolutely under consideration for quite a long time, we're only about fifty years past that, roughly at the time there was scientific consensus that, yes, we do have plate tectonics, B) the statement that "a belief in psi powers implicitly supports an ideology of racial supremacy" absolutely does not track and is a cheap smear.
6) He name-drops Jack Parsons without pointing out his philosophies.
7) Because right now we have to have some kind of anti-Russian sentiment, he picks Nicholas Berdyaev, and just wildly ignores the parallel thoughts of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, which gave rise to Frank Tipler's concept of a grand unification at the end of the universe of all thinking beings. It might be summarized in the philosophy "Everything that rises must converge," which made its way into the writings of Flannery O'Connor and a Shriekback tune. But we have to shake our fists at those Ruskies, so we pick this one.
8) What a narrow slice of Rationalism he's introduced us to. "So, these Catholics, they're ritual cannibals," as if that were all we needed to know. And he seems to think that perhaps we ought not to look at the possible implications of the far-ranging impacts of AI, which doesn't need to be particularly intelligent or even malevolent to cause damage, especially if you're a man taken for a box of vegetables.
9) Worse yet, he's looked at the past of sci-fi writers and ignored the past of politics: recall Reagan's SDI proposal, getting smeared as "Star Wars."
No, this is just general rage at people with enough money to try out some wild ideas (and I am no fan at all of the whole Mars business). Wild ideas that size always need a lot of money behind them, and this has gone on through history. Most fall through, sometimes we land on the Moon, sometimes we invent nukes. They all sound science-fictiony when we start, but the core premise that the science fiction writers themselves created various concepts, without which the apparently bumbling golems of industry would not have anything to blow their money on? It's ridiculous.
People have pursued longevity probably roughly around the time as they figured out that they, too, were going to die. At first it would have been practical business, like avoiding tigers or not eating the red berries, but after a while it becomes prayers and on to potions.
Transhumanism? That's little more than wanting to exceed our limits. We probably first did it with tools, and also for cosmetic purposes, but then people wanted those reaches past what had been built-in to their bodies. Again, probably existed before writing, as humans dreamed of being ascended demigods.
Effective altruism, ah, the terrible concept of wanting your charity to go to someone who actually needed it. Existed since the first malingerer, the first false beggar was discovered. But let's mention Sam Bankman-Fried so we can make that concept sound bad.
Gosh, the more I look at this essay, the more the cheap tricks stand out. I feel like I could go on and on.
1) Pulling Ayn Rand in just to bash on her is both a stretch to what might be called science fiction and reeks of simply burning an effigy.
2) I think we're finally at the tipping point where the left has switched from relentlessly working some kind of reference to Trump into their ongoing outrage, or simply as a tribe-signaling device (see "Trump Derangement Syndrome") and on to the injection of Musk. Call it "Conservation of Goldstein."
3) Mentions Gernsback and not the most excellent sci-fi story "The Gernsback Continuum"? Poor showing.
4) Cory Doctorow's feelings about "The Cold Equations" are a real froth-fest and reek of a different sort of irrational optimism, the avoidance of what are called "lifeboat politics." I would avoid citing him on that particular issue.
5) Banging on Campbell like that, also tacky A) given that psi powers were absolutely under consideration for quite a long time, we're only about fifty years past that, roughly at the time there was scientific consensus that, yes, we do have plate tectonics, B) the statement that "a belief in psi powers implicitly supports an ideology of racial supremacy" absolutely does not track and is a cheap smear.
6) He name-drops Jack Parsons without pointing out his philosophies.
7) Because right now we have to have some kind of anti-Russian sentiment, he picks Nicholas Berdyaev, and just wildly ignores the parallel thoughts of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, which gave rise to Frank Tipler's concept of a grand unification at the end of the universe of all thinking beings. It might be summarized in the philosophy "Everything that rises must converge," which made its way into the writings of Flannery O'Connor and a Shriekback tune. But we have to shake our fists at those Ruskies, so we pick this one.
8) What a narrow slice of Rationalism he's introduced us to. "So, these Catholics, they're ritual cannibals," as if that were all we needed to know. And he seems to think that perhaps we ought not to look at the possible implications of the far-ranging impacts of AI, which doesn't need to be particularly intelligent or even malevolent to cause damage, especially if you're a man taken for a box of vegetables.
9) Worse yet, he's looked at the past of sci-fi writers and ignored the past of politics: recall Reagan's SDI proposal, getting smeared as "Star Wars."
No, this is just general rage at people with enough money to try out some wild ideas (and I am no fan at all of the whole Mars business). Wild ideas that size always need a lot of money behind them, and this has gone on through history. Most fall through, sometimes we land on the Moon, sometimes we invent nukes. They all sound science-fictiony when we start, but the core premise that the science fiction writers themselves created various concepts, without which the apparently bumbling golems of industry would not have anything to blow their money on? It's ridiculous.
People have pursued longevity probably roughly around the time as they figured out that they, too, were going to die. At first it would have been practical business, like avoiding tigers or not eating the red berries, but after a while it becomes prayers and on to potions.
Transhumanism? That's little more than wanting to exceed our limits. We probably first did it with tools, and also for cosmetic purposes, but then people wanted those reaches past what had been built-in to their bodies. Again, probably existed before writing, as humans dreamed of being ascended demigods.
Effective altruism, ah, the terrible concept of wanting your charity to go to someone who actually needed it. Existed since the first malingerer, the first false beggar was discovered. But let's mention Sam Bankman-Fried so we can make that concept sound bad.
Gosh, the more I look at this essay, the more the cheap tricks stand out. I feel like I could go on and on.