
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations - duggan
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-coronavirus-and-our-future
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dunkelheit
I have weird feelings towards KSR. His Mars trilogy is awesome in imagining a
realistic kind of future that wouldn't be so awful to live in. He is
interested in alternative forms of social organization and does a good job of
depicting them (he is obviously sympathetic to local egalitarian governments
but in his novels they are often quite realistically hampered by indecision
and lack of consensus).

Yet I couldn't but feel disgust towards his later novel Aurora. Spoilers
follow.

In the novel a group of colonists on a big generation ship (a transparent
metaphor for the spaceship Earth) fly towards a nearby star. Near the end of
their voyage they encounter lots of ecological problems that they don't quite
know how to deal with. When they arrive they are dealt the final blow - the
most hospitable planet contains a deadly pathogen that shatters all hopes of
establishing a colony. The author is clearly unsympathetic - their problems
are the retribution for the hubris of their ancestors. The solution to the
problem is emphatically not science and tech, which is helpless (it even can't
quite pin down what the pathogen really is). What is the solution that he
approves of? Fly back to Earth, quit thinking about anything so arrogant as
star expansion and lie on the beach enjoying the surf.

Yet we don't have anywhere to go back to. Sure we must temper our hubris but
the only way to solve our problems is forward.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
I thought _Aurora_ was flawed in one major respect. The novel suggests that
galactic expansion is impossible for civilizations because foreign star
systems will have alien pathogens or other environmental factors hostile to
human beings. So far, so good, an enjoyable explanation for the Fermi paradox
and a contrary view to the optimism in KSR’s earlier novels about terraforming
planets.

But in _Aurora_ KSR also decides to make the generation starship’s quantum
computer evolve to become sentient. Now the obvious question to resolve is
that machines wouldn't be susceptible to all the biological challenges that
KSR listed, so why can't civilizations expand to other solar systems in
machine forms? But KSR doesn't grapple with that at all, it is completely
passed over.

~~~
dunkelheit
Well, the pathogen is not _the reason_ but one of the reasons. The message is
clear - if not one thing then another will get you. Again, I feel that this is
a metaphor for expansionism in general, not necessary galactic expansionism in
particular.

> But in Aurora KSR also decides to make the generation starship’s quantum
> computer evolve to become sentient. Now the obvious question to resolve is
> that machines wouldn't be susceptible to all the biological challenges that
> KSR listed, so why can't civilizations expand to other solar systems in
> machine forms? But KSR doesn't grapple with that at all, it is completely
> passed over.

Yeah, it was a kind of a gimmick. KSR is clearly more interested in societies
and ecologies than AIs. And this is not a bad thing in my view.

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maxerickson
I sure don't get the sense that people are thinking harder about the future.

The great majority have quietly and calmly made the choice to socially
distance, but they looking into the near future when they expect to feel safe
enough to go back to the things they were doing before, not contemplating
their place in something new.

~~~
gremlinsinc
I can't help feeling there is no going back. Like Frodo, some wounds just
can't heal. But maybe it's not a bad thing. Maybe we needed a shock to the
system to save us from other things down the road. If we can pull together
through this, maybe we can science our way out of climate crisis and
automation/job-loss crisis next decade.

We've had it pretty easy for a long time, plenty of suffering independantly
and not well off, but no world wars and major global catastrophe's like the
dustbowl and great depression and ww2 all in a single decade (or close to it).

I hope we do always remember this, and I also don't think life after this
resembles 'normal' for a very very long time.

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klum
Having just read Steven Pinker's book "Enlightenment Now", I'm skeptical of
any article that paints this cynical view of how humans are wasting the earth,
living their short-sighted lives with no regard for their future descendants.

The reality is that science, described here as "keeping the whole system of
technical improvisation from falling down", is eradicating extreme poverty and
disease on an incredible scale. It is also making poor countries less poor,
which in turn makes their people better off and, yes, make them contribute
less to pollution (it also slows population growth). It seems likely to me
that the hits taken by the economy in these circumstances will be felt harder
in poorer countries, slowing this positive progress for a while.

The author actually notes that the earth holding close to 8 billion people is
only made possible by science. He describes this as "unnatural and unstable".
This, combined with the fact that further scientific progress is required for
all these people to be healthy and well-fed makes me tend to agree with the
poster reacting the the novel Aurora and noting "we don't have anywhere to go
back to".

~~~
morsch
_It is also making poor countries less poor, which in turn makes their people
better off and, yes, make them contribute less to pollution (it also slows
population growth)._

How is that? People who are less poor – almost per definition – consume more
and hence tend to use up more resources/cause more pollution per capita.

~~~
klum
Some of the reasons put forth by Pinker:

* a poor country prioritizes growth while a richer one can afford to consider the environment

* a richer country has access to more efficient technology

* on the level of individuals, moral (or future) concerns are not in the forefront of your mind until you have your immediate needs for shelter, food etc. covered.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
> * a poor country prioritizes growth while a richer one can afford to
> consider the environment

Can afford to. May even consider it. But don't act.

> * a richer country has access to more efficient technology

But will not encourage that efficiency unless there's some kind of profit to
be made from switching away from the less efficient incumbent.

> * on the level of individuals, moral (or future) concerns are not in the
> forefront of your mind until you have your immediate needs for shelter, food
> etc. covered.

PS5, Samsung S999, Lexus, Jetski, Outdoor entertaining re-model.

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alberto_ol
"To continue using a private window, sign in or subscribe." A question to
other firefox users. Do you disable the private browsing to read this article?

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dunkelheit
I disable javascript, it works against this kind of shit for now.

~~~
higerordermap
An extra plus is saving battery if on mobile.

