[ExI] SciAm & Charlie Stross: BS

[Stuart LaForge]

On 2023-12-23 23:46, Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat wrote:
> Once great science journal Scientific American and once great science
> fiction writer Charlie Stross are deep into wokedecel B U L L S H I T
> these days.
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/

Lol. It is ironic that Stross is trying to absolve himself of the future 
he helped to create. Did Stross forget Oscar Wilde's maxim that "Life 
imitates art far more than art imitates life?"

In his piece, Stross says that "Science fiction, therefore, does not 
develop in accordance with the scientific method. It develops by popular 
entertainers trying to attract a bigger audience by pandering to them." 
And then he drags billionaires over the coals for daring to be 
influenced by the science fiction that he and his colleagues wrote who 
are just trying to get people to buy their books. But in reality, the 
billionaires are just trying to do the same thing: sell people more 
technological products by pandering to them. It is not a huge leap of 
logic to think that people who buy books depicting futuristic technology 
might actually want to buy the technology were it available.

So selling their wares to the masses seems to be an agenda that is 
shared by both SF writers and tech billionaires. Shame on the pot for 
calling the kettle black.

A more pressing question is what do these woke Luddites want? They rail 
against the belief that technology is the solution to all of society's 
problems, but they don't seem very forthcoming with any alternative 
solutions of their own. The biggest problem that society faces is that 
it is so immense: 8 billion people and counting. Ideology and government 
oversight certainly can't feed, provide energy for, and shelter 8 
billion people; only technology can. What would the woke Luddites have 
us do? Have the diverse children of the world hold hands and sing 
kumbaya until the lights go out and the cannibalism starts? In my 
opinion, a dystopian high-tech future is strictly preferable to eating 
one another in the dark.

Stuart LaForge