Post 619911 by lux_interior@knzk.me
(DIR) More posts by lux_interior@knzk.me
(DIR) Post #619527 by thatcosmonaut@monads.online
2018-10-18T16:41:00.889878Z
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starting to feel like science fiction was a mistake (except for Ursula k leguin of course)
(DIR) Post #619528 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T16:42:31Z
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@thatcosmonautSamuel Delaney, Octavia Butler, and PKD tho!!
(DIR) Post #619539 by amphetamine@social.wxcafe.net
2018-10-18T16:43:10Z
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@thatcosmonaut i stan for octavia butler
(DIR) Post #619540 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T16:43:13Z
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@thatcosmonautalso Carmen Maria Machado and Sofia Samatar have some great scifi-esque short stories in their recent collections
(DIR) Post #619651 by thatcosmonaut@monads.online
2018-10-18T16:44:15.830022Z
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@mardiroos as incisive as PKD's critiques are I feel like he had a hand in bringing this dark future we are experiencing into being. i guess recently I feel that speculative fiction is really good at pointing out problems but all it does is acclimatize us to them instead of showing us the way out of them
(DIR) Post #619652 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T16:49:47Z
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@thatcosmonautah while I think PKD has many flaws I don't think he has much responsibility for technological dystopia. unlike loads of his contemporaries the foundation of his writing is vast alienation and horror at the destruction of shared realities, not celebration of technology. dystopia can be acclimatising but it's also a necessary counterpoint to utopian thinking, which is the broader context PKD and the other new wave and cyberpunks were writing against.
(DIR) Post #619668 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T16:51:07Z
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@thatcosmonautobv cyberpunk and sci-fi in general has been appropriated and turned to serve capital and utopia, but that's a fundamental problem with art under capitalism and is not unique to sci-fi, I think
(DIR) Post #619680 by gaditb@icosahedron.website
2018-10-18T16:52:06Z
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@mardiroos @thatcosmonaut Joanna Russ! James Tiptree Jr.!SCIENCE FICTION wasn't a mistake -- just the accepted Science-fiction CANON.(... But then, what Canon ISN'T?)
(DIR) Post #619705 by gaditb@icosahedron.website
2018-10-18T16:54:05Z
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@mardiroos @thatcosmonaut Joanna Russ! James Tiptree Jr.!
(DIR) Post #619829 by thatcosmonaut@monads.online
2018-10-18T16:54:19.235762Z
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@mardiroos i guess it bothers me how many people can look at something like neuromancer or blade runner and say "that is an extremely cool future" like how do you get under a tech worshippers skin and when they see the proliferation of oppressive technologies as an ultimate good in and of itself? is there even a way to cut through that?
(DIR) Post #619830 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:05:41Z
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@thatcosmonaut hmm. I think it's very hard, perhaps impossible, to set up work that is uncooptable indefinitely. I think about Deleuze talking about theories as something to be created in response to local situations and practices, not totalizing. I think this is a good way to look at art also. The answer is not to do 70s cyberpunk again, because that was distinctly of its time and an answer to that moment, which in its turn was answered and counterattacked.
(DIR) Post #619844 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:07:56Z
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@thatcosmonaut so I think the science fiction that answers modern techno-utopianism is probably not gonna be fighting the battle on the grounds of tech being scary, because it's not anymore. It could focus on more specific material struggles with scifi framing as metaphor, or be utopian in a different direction.
(DIR) Post #619856 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:09:55Z
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@thatcosmonaut Sorry To Bother You is a pretty explicitly scifi movie, and I think it's hard to come away from that without seeing its radical message. Will elements of it be co-opted in 2, 5, 10 years time? Probably! Power re-positions itself in response to attack, right, but that doesn't necessarily mean the attack was a failure. I think looking at the battle as something to be fought for the eternal future of the art is a mistake; make your art as a weapon to fight now, in this moment.
(DIR) Post #619867 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:11:18Z
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@thatcosmonaut I think about this Deleuze quote a lot:"it was Proust, an author thought to be a pure intellectual, who said it so clearly: treat my book as a pair of glasses directed to the outside; if they don't suit you, find another pair; I leave it to you to find your own instrument, which is necessarily an investment for combat. A theory does not totalise; it is an instrument for multiplication and it also multiplies itself."
(DIR) Post #619871 by erosdiscordia@radical.town
2018-10-18T17:02:36Z
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@thatcosmonautI'd really like to read more speculative/science fiction that offers blueprints for a different way, even if that's not the books main focus. @mardiroos
(DIR) Post #619872 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:12:08Z
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@erosdiscordia @thatcosmonaut Machado has a few melancholy but optimistic stories about surviving the end of the world as we know it that I found very striking
(DIR) Post #619911 by lux_interior@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:04:18Z
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@thatcosmonaut @mardiroos A few things here...straight from My Opinion Land. Spec Fiction is rarely, if ever, about providing answers. It's job is to offer glimpses and pose questions. Answers are much more difficult to come by. Most of these questions don't have anything but the most complex answers. PKD was writing for two reasons. To get paid and keep a roof over his head. To figure out what was going on in his own head.
(DIR) Post #619912 by erosdiscordia@radical.town
2018-10-18T17:12:26Z
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@lux_interiorI think that's true essential for the speculative aspect of the genre. But also, "what questions are most crucial right now?" is subject to trends and manipulation, especially once an author has success or literary cache. Lines of sci-fi inquiry can get sent in more, or less, creative or optimistic or inclusive directions. @thatcosmonaut @mardiroos
(DIR) Post #619913 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:15:23Z
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@erosdiscordia @lux_interior @thatcosmonaut yes, I think limiting science fiction to purely posing questions is, well, limiting. to truly investigate a problem is to solve it.
(DIR) Post #619923 by lux_interior@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:15:25Z
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@erosdiscordia @thatcosmonaut @mardiroos I don't want to get long winded about art here. But I don't think PKD was ever attempting "art." He was trying to earn enough to live. His art was born around his continual struggle to determine who he WAS.
(DIR) Post #619924 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:15:50Z
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@lux_interior @erosdiscordia @thatcosmonaut I mean, that's what most art is.
(DIR) Post #620092 by thatcosmonaut@monads.online
2018-10-18T17:26:14.911597Z
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@mardiroos thank you for this insight, i suppose its not fair to judge the sci fi of the past for its inability to properly critique the problems of today
(DIR) Post #620093 by mardiroos@knzk.me
2018-10-18T17:29:51Z
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@thatcosmonaut yeah I mean there's certainly a lot of bad old scifi. I've been thinking a lot about the position of anti-capitalist art recently and I'm still working out my understanding and practice there, lol
(DIR) Post #620314 by _ampersand@guillotines.masto.host
2018-10-18T17:45:19Z
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@mardiroos @thatcosmonaut somebody (em?) on here showed this article off about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.weareplanc.org%2Fblog%2Fwe-are-all-very-anxious%2FAnd I'm chewing on it pretty hard. It's very explicit about how we can make theory, art, and practice of the moment, and diagnoses our present as "anxious." Unless we address how 21st century capital makes us anxious, we are missing what it does to us. This might be why horror seems so effective now.