Not Science Fiction...Cosmic Fantasy

[KilroywasNOTHere]

One of the things I was taught in both college and have learned for myself over the last several years is that Culture, ideas, and truths are expressed through language. My dad taught me this truism that I've only appreciated more as I have gotten older. He told me "Son, words mean things." It's no secret in this day and age that part of the reason why the left has been able to get such a foothold on the culture is because they have managed to position themselves as the gatkeeps and abiters of american culture, one being education, another being art, and of course theology. but it seems like there is one that is seemingly talked about less and that is the definers of The English Language.

I was recently (and when I say recently I litterally mean a couple of minutes ago as of writing this. Listened to a Redpill America Episode about the "Fine tuned universe theory."

Bassically to give a VERY brief summary, everything about our universe and how it functions seems to be fined tuned to make life on earth possible. Change what little part of law, or even put one celestial body out of place or on the oppisite extreme add anything to it, and suddenly life on earth becomes inpossible. I can't remeber any of the equations off the top of my head but this forbes article does go into just some of how fine tuned the universe is and how just changing one thing is any direction would cause our universe to collapse.

The Universe Really Is Fine-Tuned, And Our Existence Is The Proof

Now I want to ask two questions.

1. Can something really be call an idea based on science if it directly goes against observable reality? (IE science)
2. How many on the left are directly inspired by Star Trek

If indeed this universe is so fine tuned, then that would mean that what we call science fiction is in fact not scientific at all. if anything about the laws of science were changed, then life COULD NOT exist. stuff like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica would be fundamentally impossible. So would that mean that these sorts of stories are not fiction based on science IE realistic fiction, but rather fantasy fiction that uses the Cosmos as an aesthetic background a sort of "Cosmic Fantasy"

Considering how much of modern progressivism seems to stem from the idea that stuff like Star Trek is based on science and is therefore obtainable, I can't help but think that the first step to winning the culture war against Marxism would actually be reclaiming the expression of truth through language and I honestly believe that one of the easiest first steps would be to separate Fantasy and science/reality. All this to say that I think I'll personally start using the phrase Cosmic Fantasy or techno-Fantasy as opposed to science fiction as I think that more accurately describes such works as Star Trek, Star Wars, maybe for stuff like Fallout Apocalypse-Fantasy would be more accurate.


Does anybody think my ramblings are valid or do you think me a madman?

 

[Bassoe]

Considering how much of modern progressivism seems to stem from the idea that stuff like Star Trek is based on science and is therefore obtainable, I can't help but think that the first step to winning the culture war against Marxism would actually be reclaiming the expression of truth through language and I honestly believe that one of the easiest first steps would be to separate Fantasy and science/reality.

Arguably true. The future trek envisions with its FTL spaceships and rubber forehead aliens and discrepant cultures getting along is indeed an unrealistic fantasy. But that doesn't necessarily mean a better future, or at least a future where your grandkids enjoy comparable quality of life to your own rather than being enslaved either by a technocratic dystopia or pastoralist feudal drudgery after declining EROI destroyed civilization is impossible, there are viable technological alternatives, just not funding for them.

The bright past versus the dark future

So one thing I’ve noticed for a while is the title name.

shinichihaku.substack.com

Joshua Derrick's proposed future is as unacceptable as Klaus Schwab's.

Joshua Derrick on Substack

This captures my frustration with those on the right who indulge in fantasies of space colonization or worse, thinking that winning the culture war will suddenly let us build a new hyperborea or something (John Carter and similar substacks are some of the worst in this regard). Fact is, even if...

substack.com

Imagine the sixties-era hard-scifi future that never was. Fundamentally not new technology, stuff we've had perfectly viable designs for since the cold war space race but could never actually afford to build.

Between NERVA nuclear rockets, Sea Dragon and levels of funding comparable to the middle eastern quagmire's war profiteering OTL, astronauts have walked on every solid body in the solar system, there are permanent colonies on the moon and mars and asteroid mining is a bigger business than computers, of which there was only a market for five or so worldwide.

Therefore...

• We wouldn't be in danger of societal collapse from peak resources. There's plenty of rare earth ores for electronics in the asteroids and electricity from powersats.
• We wouldn't be in danger of environmental apocalypse, or more accurately, we could treat the symptoms of the problem without actually solving it insofar as we are the problem. Orbital sunshades to cool the planet and cheap oil-free electricity from powersats and practice building sealed artificial habitats in lifeless wastelands if we fuck up anyway.
• We wouldn't be in danger of controlled singularity letting the oligarchy enslave or exterminate the rest of humanity with the ultimate monopoly of force provided by a robot army or using transhumanism to make people into slaves who're literally biologically incapable of rebellion.
• We wouldn't be in danger of uncontrolled singularity, aka, the Paperclip Maximizer.
• We'd be in less danger of nuclear apocalypse. Which is to say, yes, there could still be a nuclear war, but it wouldn't kill everyone since the space colonies would be out of range and their descendants would eventually recolonize the dead earth as soon as the radiation died down.
• The great financialization of society could've been averted. The economy could legitimately keep growing by generating value since there's ready sources of fresh capital in the exploitation of spaceborne resources and construction of colonization infrastructure rather than needing financial scams and autocannibalism of ownership into subscription-feudalism like OTL. The suburban house with a white picket fence and 2.5 kids on a single worker's salary remains attainable, even if said houses are built aboard o'neill cylinders.

Now you just need to figure out a political system that transfers the wealth necessary to build all this stuff from the current crop of financier oligarchs who stand to rule the world as neofeudal lords under the whole you-will-own-nothing subscription economy shtick if they don't build it and things continue on their current path to our loyalists on the condition that they make better use of it.

 

[LordDemiurge]

Its kind of long been established that most works of science fiction genre are basically just fantasy. Star Wars atleast has the decency to admit its supernatural elements, and even then it somehow has less witchcraft then whatever Star Trek hides under its technobabble.

Does anybody think my ramblings are valid or do you think me a madman?

There is of course a dilemma to be had. Which is that fiction that sets out to be partisan from the start is usually doomed to be terrible.

Any good right wing sci fi should be written without setting out to be explicitly right wing.

For me I recommend Christopher Ruocchio's Sun Eater series.

Author is a Catholic and his religious beliefs do play a role in the series. But for the most part it arguably serves as a deconstruction of ST or posthuman sci fi. The fetishization or gloating of being 'insignificant specks in the universe.'

The series is based heavily on Dune, with a Robot war in the backstory. But the interesting thing is however is that the AI weren't even violent towards humanity. They threatened mankind because overtime they grew to assimilate people and trap them in a Matrix where they can dream safely and forever.

Before being destroyed by the humans who were able to escape and avert humanity's fate as factory farmed brain matter.

 

[LordsFire]

Therefore...

• We wouldn't be in danger of societal collapse from peak resources. There's plenty of rare earth ores for electronics in the asteroids and electricity from powersats.
• We wouldn't be in danger of environmental apocalypse, or more accurately, we could treat the symptoms of the problem without actually solving it insofar as we are the problem. Orbital sunshades to cool the planet and cheap oil-free electricity from powersats and practice building sealed artificial habitats in lifeless wastelands if we fuck up anyway.
• We wouldn't be in danger of controlled singularity letting the oligarchy enslave or exterminate the rest of humanity with the ultimate monopoly of force provided by a robot army or using transhumanism to make people into slaves who're literally biologically incapable of rebellion.
• We wouldn't be in danger of uncontrolled singularity, aka, the Paperclip Maximizer.
• We'd be in less danger of nuclear apocalypse. Which is to say, yes, there could still be a nuclear war, but it wouldn't kill everyone since the space colonies would be out of range and their descendants would eventually recolonize the dead earth as soon as the radiation died down.
• The great financialization of society could've been averted. The economy could legitimately keep growing by generating value since there's ready sources of fresh capital in the exploitation of spaceborne resources and construction of colonization infrastructure rather than needing financial scams and autocannibalism of ownership into subscription-feudalism like OTL. The suburban house with a white picket fence and 2.5 kids on a single worker's salary remains attainable, even if said houses are built aboard o'neill cylinders.

All except for the last two of these are products of exactly the kind of science fantasy being talked about.

1. The left has been screeching 'peak resources' for more than half a century. They've not only been wrong every time, but we keep finding that we have not just more, but shit-tons more than thought, with large swathes of the Earth and Sea still not comperehensively surveyed to boot.

2. We aren't even remotely close to an environmental collapse. If anything, modest upticks in carbon levels (still relatively low compared to much of history) are helping re-green the planet. Since, you know, it's what plants breathe.

3. Sci-fi robots remain sci-fi robots. We're getting to the point of robots that can maybe do a third of the physical tasks that humans can do, and The Terminator is still as far away as Arnie is from becoming President.

4. The singularity is not possible, period. It fails to account for the issue of 'diminishing returns,' as well as AIs fundamental ability to account for unknown unknowns, while trying to make major leaps forward in technology requires engaging with just such things a lot of the time.


Stupid leaders pushing buttons, and malicious actors warping currency and financial markets, yep, those are absolutely real problems that could and have caused a lot of grief.

 

[Bassoe]

so the John Greer brand defeatism


According to you, technological progress has reached its apogee and there's only decline from the Competency Crisis and the breakdown of global supply lines ahead. (also resources, but you apparently don't believe in them) There's no possible better future so suck it up and stop asking for the bare minimum of leadership who're willing to spend money on known, possible technological solutions, instead just go back to feudalism.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

so the John Greer brand defeatism


According to you, technological progress has reached its apogee and there's only decline from the Competency Crisis and the breakdown of global supply lines ahead. (also resources, but you apparently don't believe in them) There's no possible better future so suck it up and stop asking for the bare minimum of leadership who're willing to spend money on known, possible technological solutions, instead just go back to feudalism.

Are you talking to me or Lord fire. If me that's not what I'm saying at all. If anything it's the opposite. We need to continue researching known technology solutions instead of dumping money into solutions based on science fiction that have no observable scientific backing.

For example why is not More money put into nuclear power research as opposed to wind which has to borderline break the laws of energy in order to do what envormentalist want it to do.

 

[willdelve4beer]

For example why is not More money put into nuclear power research as opposed to wind which has to borderline break the laws of energy in order to do what envormentalist want it to do.

Money isn't put into nuclear power, b/c during the cold war the Soviets got all their pseudo-scientific useful idiots in the west to freak out that 'China Syndrome' was going to kill off all life on Earth. Of course, once the useful idiots were on record advocating that position, they couldn't just back down. So reactors in Iran and North Korea and Russia and... are good and a wonderful sign of economic and scientific progress, but reactors close to home are icky and bad. What I always find hilarious is the europhile American left being simultaneously francophile and anti-nuclear, given the massive percentage of french electrical power sourced from fission reactors. Cognitive dissonance at work, yet again.

Same thing with tobacco. Everyone has known since the 1600's that smoking was bad for you. Hell, anyone who has walked too close to any kind of fire and breathed in smoke knew it was bad for you. But no one made it a moral crusade until the 1970s and 1980s? Why.

Jesse Helms, Republican senator from North Carolina, a.k.a. Senator No.

Strident Republican, re-elected by his constituents for decades. Among his major financial backers - the tobacco industry - which was and is the major local cash-crop, and hence the major agricultural industry of NC. Democrats couldn't beat him at the ballot box, so they started a campaign to handicap him financially by destroying his backers, another shining example of democracy in action.

If you want proof that the tobacco crusade was always political - compare how democrats react to smoking tobacco vs smoking marijuana (both activities involve inhaling smoke fumes - not great for the lungs) and their constant freakouts over nicotene gum/patches/etc. (nicotene isn't carcinogenic in and of itself, after all). No, the great tobacco crusade was about finally striking back at Senator No.

Of course, Helms died over a decade ago, but like all crusades, it developed interest groups and momentum of its own. So it will continue until the end of time, or until the tobacco firms linked the lawsuit settlements reorg themselves out of making further payments.