upvote

points

by delichon4 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby chasil4 hours ago|
next
[-]
Also, we've realized the scientific reality that traveling faster than light is likely impossible, and the vast distances to other habitable planets would mean tens of thousands of years of travel even with the most efficient technology.

Interstellar space is also hostile to life, and any life present at the destination will not use the same DNA coding for protein (if gene expression even works that way).

We also do not yet have the technology for a complete survey of nearby habitable planets.

It is not an encouraging line of thought.

reply
upvoteby foobarbecue3 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
Maybe, but the most compelling scifi to me personally is the generation ship stuff, like Ring by Steven Baxter.
reply
upvoteby Alex-Programs3 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
This is motivated pessimism. We knew in the 50s that breaking the speed of light was highly unlikely. We dreamed of the stars anyway. Now we refuse to dream, or to even attempt to solve the problems (a common pattern when discussing spaceflight is people who are blatantly searching for problems, rather than solutions), because we are pessimistic, devoid of imagination, and seek to legitimise our collective depression through scientific and engineering arguments.
reply
upvoteby jfengel3 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
You don't need to break the speed of light to get to the stars. Time dilation and space contraction mean that you can get there in as little time as you desire.

Everyone you knew on earth would be dead by the time you got back, but if it's just about you, the speed of light is no limitation at all. (The rocket equation, however, presents stupendous engineering challenges.)

reply
upvoteby chasil3 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
I have upvoted you, and perhaps you are right that there are shades of pessimism in this perspective.

The 2020s have not been known as reasons for great optimism. The pandemic and AI culling clades of the job market have been traumatizing experiences.

reply
upvoteby binary1321 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
If you think this is something that started in the 2020s you need to review the chart.
reply
upvoteby krapp3 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
I don't think it's motivated pessimism so much as a shifting tastes and changes in media. There are tons of SF stories with starships in movies, games and streaming platforms. It just happens to be the case that fantasy is more popular then SF at the moment where books are concerned.
reply
upvoteby echelon3 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
Our astrophysicists don't even know why the universe is expanding, don't know that Lambda CDM is correct, don't know if things are universally consistent, yet we're so damned sure this is it.

We don't even know that this isn't a simulation. Not non-falsifiable, sure. But we're convinced we're bound to this solar system with our crude tools and limits of detection.

One new instrument could upset our grand understanding and models. Maybe we should wait until they get better hardware to marry ourselves to their prognostications of the end of time.

During the postwar years of plenty, people stopped dreaming. We had bold dreams before WWII, but people stopped looking at how far we'd come and started comparing themselves to everyone else. We had no mortal enemy, tremendous wealth, and "keeping up with the Joneses" became the new operating protocol.

We have more than we did in the past. The manufacturing wealth of 1940-1970 was a fluke. The trade wealth of 1980-2020 was a fluke. We were upset over an unfair advantage that won't last forever. Even today we're still better off than a hundred years ago, yet everyone focuses on how bad things are.

Maybe a return to hardship will make us dream again.

reply
upvoteby jfengel3 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
We do know why the universe is expanding. That's due to general relativity. That's well attested to high confidence.

We don't know why the expansion is accelerating. For that we have only speculation.

reply
upvoteby lotsofpulp3 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
> we've realized the scientific reality that traveling faster than light is likely impossible

Would any of the stories about the characters’ relationships with people not traveling with them be entertaining given the effects of time dilation?

reply
upvoteby Den_VR4 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
I still find myself quite taken by some sci-fi writing. Iain M Banks works, Rajaniemi, and Joan Slonczewski. The “problem” is that they are not popular the way Harry Potter or isekai are.
reply
upvoteby pfdietz3 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
Stated with a different spin, the detached-from-reality takes of Campbell-era SF finally became too strained to enjoy.
reply
upvoteby HPsquared3 hours ago|
prev|
next
[-]
Why did people want to escape Earth though? Maybe they felt Earth was past saving.
reply
upvoteby flohofwoe3 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
I don't know, to the East of the Iron Curtain science fiction wasn't mostly about future optimism (at least after the initial "we're building a better society" optimism had been brutally murdered during the 1950s and 60s), but often a critical mirror of then-current society transported into the future to escape state censorship.

Maybe it's as simple as free societies not having the evolutionary pressure to produce great literature that requires an interested and intelligent reader to decode the hidden messages written between the lines ;)

reply