Science fiction - Understanding and implications

[csaurabh]

A happy new year to all of you.
This thread is meant for understanding the science fiction genre, its origins in the west, and how we can relate to them.

Fiction is not something that is abstract and imaginary and only meant for enjoying/time pass. On the contrary, it has very strong influence on the way people think and act. Instead of providing a 'book of rules', the morals and philosophies can be embedded inside of stories that are commonly shared among people . The Chinese philosopher Menicus explained that the examples of any story are not applicable directly and instead people should cultivate a capacity to understand and extrapolate the ideals of any given story to a real world situation.

Thus, a story of about how a fictional "Starship captain" deals with a delicate issue could be in the subconscious of a real world person such as a diplomat or technocrat, and give rise to some ideas about how to deal with some real world issues. Our ancestors were quite aware of this and that is why we have stories in texts like Mahabharata, Panchatantra , etc. that imbue a deep understanding of morality and gave us a way to understand the world. This is also true of the great Indian novels published during the late colonial period. Unfortunately, in the last 50 years, the great art of storytelling faded away from India, leaving in its place a superficial, crude 'pop' culture consisting of bollywood films and cricket matches.

The impact of the lack of good fiction in serious categories has been devastating, and I don't think we fully understand the magnitude of it yet. Our elites had no narrative that we could really identify with and come up with innovative solutions. We have hardly any high quality movies or TV serials that discuss technological innovations, military strategy or foreign policy. Therefore it shouldn't be surprising that we have no technological innovations, military strategy or foreign policy.

This is true for many other genres of fiction. We also have no good cop shows, legal drama, medical drama, etc. Of course, I don't think that doctors literally take their medical ethics from "Grey's Anatomy" . But all the same, I know a lot of doctors who do enjoy the show and it obviously influences them to some extent. The same goes for technologists, scientists and engineers, who often watch shows like "Star trek" as well as reading Asimov novels, etc.

The availability of high quality fiction from the West,on the other hand, has always been there - in the form of novels, TV, movies and video games. And we have always been inspired and influenced by it, even though we didn't really feel part of the narrative. Actually participating in this and actually contributing an alternative narrative is a pretty big job and I think we are decades away from it at the moment. On this thread, I will attempt to review various science fiction TV shows, movies, novels and see what we can learn from them. This is one thing we don't really do seriously as a country- literary criticism. I am aware that there is a whole style of Indian literary criticism using terms like Vakroti and Auchitya. However, I don't know much about them so I'll just try to do it in my own words.

The origins of Science fiction as a genre go back to the nineteenth century, with novels by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. In the twentieth century, we see writers such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke come to the fore. Space opera like Star Trek get started up, and from there it becomes a very mainstream genre.

I will point out here that mythology/itihasa etc. can't be called science fiction. We can't imagine Hanuman wearing a jetpack and shooting machine guns. 'Ironman' on the other hand, looks perfectly ok doing the same. This is because the entire setting is changed and we can't cross back and forth just like that. If an Indian genre of science fiction will eventually be created and start taking off, it will have to feature an entirely new cast of modern-like people. This is a tremendous undertaking and we are nowhere capable to do this at the moment. If swadeshi indology is about understanding the past, Indian science fiction should deal with the future.

Most serious science fiction are like epics. They are epics for the modern era. These science fiction epics often take up 100s of hours of screen time, comparable with most classical epics. And we need to watch all of it to really understand and appreciate it. Fortunately, I have been involved in this as a pastime for over a decade, and hope to be able to give some good insights on popular science fiction.

Science fiction itself has been through an evolutionary process and there are two aspects to it. One is, the constant evolution of technology. Jules Verne could write a story about firing a cannon to get man to the moon, but no one now would write such a story. Science fiction, for all its futuristic claims, is mostly about the present, not the future. That's why we see a lot of AI, virtual reality, etc. in todays science fiction, for instance. The second is the approach to the future. Let me elaborate on this point.

Science fiction primarily deals with the future in two ways
1. Utopian - The future is better than the present
2. Dystopian - The future is worse than the present

Utopian science fiction usually has the following elements

No more wars,poverty, hunger, etc.
All diseases would be cured
Men would cultivate a high intellectual level and have good standard of living
etc.

Dystopian science fiction on the other hand, is usually one of the following

Apocalypse scenario - climate change destroying the world, thermonuclear war, etc.
Robot revolution- Robots becoming sentient, taking over the world
Robots taking away all the jobs, unemployment
Alien invasion - this is not so common now as it used to be
Dictatorial regimes
etc.

The production of utopian and dystopian science fiction depends on what is happening in the world. In 1960s and 80s/90s we get a lot of utopian, high-hope science fiction - like Star trek, etc. However in the post 2000s era, we get a darker turn, and by now almost all science fiction being produced is dystopian, with high level of darkness and violence. As we stumble into the 21st century, the euphoric hope of science and technology fixing the world have died out, with the threat of AI taking jobs and climate change fully visible on the horizon while problems with social media and gaming addiction are coming to the fore. This darkness and despair is a little unwarranted, and I wonder if it reflects more on the decline of the west rather than the world as a whole. This is something to ponder as we go further.

I welcome your comments and discussions.

[csaurabh]

SFDebris, a website run by Chuck Sonnenburg is great source for finding and critiquing science fiction

http://sfdebris.com/index.php

His perspective however, is limited to the Western world-view, and I think we can improve on it by developing our point of view. Rajiv Malhotra discusses this concept in "Being different". Hopefully I can do justice to that idea.

[csaurabh]

The Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov
Novel series - Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth, Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation

This is a classical work of hard science fiction, and for me it was the gateway into a vast realm that I had previously no exposure to. It was a long time before I stopped hero-worshipping this series and realized that it actually has a number of flaws.

The narrative takes place in the Galactic Empire, which is a really big place, and you'd tend to find a lot of diversity. Which is there, for sure, but curiously it tends to be quite uniform in some ways. For example, there's only one language, English, so everyone thinks in similar categories. There's also no deep cultural differences - religion, as we know it, doesn't exist, and there are no systems of philosophy. Rather, Foundation's concept of man uses 'psycho-history' - predicting the behaviours of a vast number of human beings. This is the same claim made by sociology , except in the real world, 'social science' is no where near accurate at predicting anything - which is why it has become a bastion for propagandas rather than any kind of actual science. The cyclical nature of the empire - downfall followed by a period of chaos leading to renewal has interesting parallels with yuga theory and other cyclical history systems.

Asimov's universe features a number of 'backward' worlds, but we don't really know why they are backward. Certainly its not due to a lack of raw materials. We don't get a sense of how these 'backward' people relate to the world at all - religion doesn't exist, culture and philosophy barely exist. Automation and AI also don't feature much in these novels - there were self aware robots earlier, but no robots now. Asimov doesn't really explain what causes this regression of technology.

That said it's still excellent, and well worth reading.

[ramana]

Very good thread for it gives an idea of the modern Western Mind.
After the Greek and Roman Gods were mythicized, there was a huge vacuum that got filled by the Catholic saints. And after Reformation and Treaty of Westphalia (TOW) reduced the role of the Church in political life, the era of scientific inquiry started.
Science fiction is fiction based on Science as opposed to Fantasy.

Modern mind has created new myths but has to base it on Science rather than on Gods in order to survive in the post Reformation world.


I have read the Foundation series and find it fascinating. In fact I have it on my tablet.

Good observations csaurabh.

[ramana]

Csaurabh, One more genre is the linear march of time where some superhero emerges to restore order out of chaos.


This is the old Judeo-Christian myth reasserting itself.

[arshyam]

This is an interesting topic, @csaurabh saar, though I was a bit sceptical when opening it. But you have explained your thoughts well. Looking forward to more insights.

@Zynda saar might find this interesting.

[ArjunPandit]

Interesting thread!
Another thing I note is they have mixed mythology with science fiction. Marvel: Thor branch.

[sudarshan]

Western science is confused about the concept of the "spirit soul." A recurring theme in western science fiction involving machines, is that if the machine is made complicated enough, it will somehow "develop" a soul and start being human. IOW, what we call spirit, individuality, creativity, innovation - all that is simply a question of developing enough of a network of cells or neurons, so that all these qualities simply arise out of the chaos of the gazillions of connections among the neurons and cells.

If you notice, the western mind also regards the "human" spirit as somehow unique, and different from the animal or plant forms. As in "God gave man dominion over all that creepeth and flyeth and so on." It's "us humans vs. the rest of those - things!" Even that is a step up for the western mind, because it used to be - "us white humans, vs. the rest of those - things (with the things being darker skinned humans, even)!" The robots which "develop a soul," always develop "human" souls. They start creating, feeling, innovating the way humans do. The lesser animals simply don't figure in the western concept of "soul," or "mind," or "intellect."** In fact, the western mind sees no distinction between these terms. In Sanatana Dharma, there is a clear gradation from dull matter, to the senses, to the mind, to the intellect, to the soul. As in:

Indriyani parany ahur indriyebhyah param manah
Manasas tu para buddhir yo buddheh paratas tu sah.

(The senses are superior to dull matter, the mind is superior to the senses. The intellect is superior to the mind, and what can be superior to the intellect, but THAT (i.e., the spirit, or the Brahman)).

I have an idea for a fantastic novel which will expose this fallacy in the western "scientific" mind and bring out the sharply contrasting Indian viewpoint, that the individuality, creativity, innovation, etc., all arise from the spirit soul which occupies the body, rather than from the "complex interconnections of the body or brain." The idea is also to show that there is no difference between the spirit souls between, say, an amoeba, a blade of grass, a tree, a cat or dog, or a human - just that their expression is limited by the capabilities of the bodies that they inhabit. Just as a guy is limited by the vehicle he happens to be manning - if he's on a bicycle, his speed is limited, he certainly can't fly; if he's driving a car, he can do so much more; and if he's piloting a plane, well, the sky is the limit. But the guy is the same, his inherent capability is still the same! Likewise, the same spirit soul, as it evolves from the amoeba stage to the plant, to the animal to the human, and beyond (devas, yakshas, apsaras, gandharvas, maruts, danavas...) also gains in the ability to express its inherent spiritual capability, whether that capability is for art, scientific acumen, creativity, or whatever. Ahalya, for instance, gave up most of the expression of her spiritual self, by submitting to be a rock, until Shri Ram came and freed her. Likewise, the two trees whom Shri Krishna freed from their limited existence, thus granting them their original freedom of expression of their spiritual selves.

I have the story line and basic concept, but the trick would be to write the novel in such a way that the idea is presented subtly, and not "in your face."

To get back to the thread - Asimov also endorses this concept of "soul being just a question of complexity of interconnections within the machine" in many of his novels. Anybody else notice this?

** Schroedinger's paradox: Is the cat in a half-dead/ half-alive state until an observer comes along to observe its state? Notice how the "observer" has to be a "human observer," for the paradox. The cat should be equally valid as an observer of its own state, right, if one regards the spirit soul as being identical between the cat and any human? So the wave-function should collapse with the cats observation. The "paradox" comes in, because the western mind regards the cat as being somehow "superior" to inanimate matter (i.e., it can't be both dead and alive), but the western mind didn't even think of considering the cat as being a spirit soul on par with any human spirit soul (and thus being accorded valid "observer" status).

[csaurabh]

I just reread the Foundation series. The storyline actually has the Foundation develop a 'religion' based on technologies, which it then uses to psychologically dominate other worlds. And the reason for technological decline is given as follows

religious/mystical mumbo jumbo => decline in 'scientific temper' => technological stagnation => poverty/"backwardness"

In our current day there are "march for science", etc. protests which seem to be based on the same lines. It's there in other SF too I think. There is a problem because alternate point of view is not presented.

Very good thread for it gives an idea of the modern Western Mind.
After the Greek and Roman Gods were mythicized, there was a huge vacuum that got filled by the Catholic saints. And after Reformation and Treaty of Westphalia (TOW) reduced the role of the Church in political life, the era of scientific inquiry started.
Science fiction is fiction based on Science as opposed to Fantasy.

Modern mind has created new myths but has to base it on Science rather than on Gods in order to survive in the post Reformation world.

The difference between science fiction and fantasy, is that, both feature things that are "magical", but in Science Fiction this magic is handwaved away by saying that its just based on some science we don't yet know about. Even though SF has things which are clearly impossible by science - like faster than light, time travel, etc.

[deejay]

The Foundation series make more sense if read with Asimov's Robot Stories. The Bicentennial Man (discussing issues of rights of Robots), the three laws of Robotics etc. Asimov's thoughts or ideas are also expounded well in the Black Archer detective stories.

The Foundation series is also a clash between the Technologists (Physical / Material / Physicists) vs Sociologists (Mental / Spiritual / Mathematicians) - a clash between the powers dealing with matter vs powers dealing with "non matter". To me it is also an insight into the Western mindset of conquest, imperialism, hegemony, dominance; use of powers, wealth, technology, etc to rule or establish own standards for the entire globe.

Asimov in the First Foundation makes it clear that initially Religion was used by the First Foundation to colonise new worlds and then Trade. At various levels we see the same play even today by the Western World. A tendency of not being satisfied with what they have and an urge to dominate all space of interests for Humans.

[shiv]

I have been trying to locate a series of "opinion" posts I made about the way science fiction has led western imagination and has guided western lifestyles on some forum or mailing list. I can't find them, but I do believe that with the demise of religion (in the west) as a guiding light, and the rise of science and technology as an answer to everything, science fiction has often led the way in which western society has attempted to deal with the world.

Ironically - it appears to me that almost no one in the west realizes how much western science and even science fictions owes to Christianity, and Protestant Christianity at that. The religion teaches that man is at the pinnacle of creation and is destined to rule over nature. To an extent these views have guided the development of major scientific achievement but have equally led to some of the biggest social and environmental disasters that the world faces.

The quest to "dominate nature" started with goals like flying (Early Greek - Icarus, Daedalus), travelling under the sea (20000 Leagues), interstellar travel and Alien attacks on the world (HG Wells), and later colonies outside Earth (Asimov, Arthur Clarke) - all have led to technology developments like aircraft, submarines, rocketry, survival in hostile environments, life support systems etc. Cold light (20,000 Leagues) and TV/surveillance systems (1984, Orwell) were both predicted.

Robotics too has been a favourite SciFi child and the quest for "artificial intelligence" and robotics has been led by Science fiction.

I do see some serious downsides. The quest to dominate nature and keep humans in their exalted (if artificial) status as top dog has led to mineral and resource exploitation that no SciFi author predicted. There is no science that can reverse the damage done by that and in fact the only solutions appear not to be in science at all but in religion and philosophy.

Another insane development is robotics - which seems exciting and oh so today. But when I think of robots replacing humans in all human endeavour - be it games, art, companionship etc - I get the feeling that "technology" and technologists do not have a clue about what they are doing and where they are heading. I recall a satirical piece from MAD magazine speaking of a small fan driven machine - a "Nail Polish Dryer". The acerbic comment that went with that fictional ad was "What does one do in the 30 seconds saved by using this dryer?"

Similarly, if you simply replace humans with robots - there will be little left for humans to exist. Ultimately human existence itself is open to question regarding whether there is a purpose or no purpose. Making human existence redundant would be in my view a pointless pursuit and I could myself come up with SciFi scenarios that paint a picture of what humans will do when their own purpose or sense of purpose is taken over by machine.

Usually such dystopian scenarios are met with dismissal - but I believe that leaders of western science have grown up on too much science fiction stemming from Abrahamic monotheistic beliefs of human supremacy and too little insight or reading into alternate forms of learning including philosophy

[csaurabh]

It is instructive to look at 'trade' as it appears in the Foundation series. The foundation 'traders' strike deals with the elites of the underdeveloped worlds in return for small pieces of valuable technology for themselves. But they don't give out the knowledge that lies behind developing such a product, and the other side doesn't care to find out about it either. Eventually the other side ends up being dominated quite easily because they don't have much knowledge about those technologies. Additionally, the 'traders' also double as spies and informants. Many go to great length to find out key information about the other side.

This has incredible parallels in the real world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many native tribes traded vast territories in exchange for trinkets and sometimes guns - and we know what happened to them. This problem comes up now as well, and we are often at the receiving end of it, with all the technology imports and multinational companies and such like. We don't realize it because are brought up to think of trading and economy exclusively in a monetary kind of view ( and often the use of money being lavish and showing off ) and don't grasp the larger picture.

[csaurabh]

Continuing with Isaac Asimov - Robot novels.

These are well known for Asimov's 3 laws of robotics. Although the stories are quite well written, I feel that like most western authors, he struggles with the concept of a soul or having consciousness/free will. The robots are constrained to follow the 3 laws, which are nothing but neural pathways in their brains- but, they also seem to have conflicted thinking and erratic behaviour as if they have consciousness and free will, which machines do not have. In our world, the robots we have simply do as they are constructed and programmed, and we don't consider them to have consciousness ( do they?)

Asimov also underrates the dramatic sociological consequences that can happen when robots replace jobs on a large scale. I will come to this in the next post with a few novels that explore this dystopia.

[ShauryaT]

The conflict between technology, its ethical use and its impact on nature is not a new one. Some civilizations have been thinking about these issues for many 1000's of years. When Arjun and Ashwathamma released their Brahmastra, Vyasa intervened to save the worlds. Same when Brahma and Vishnu released their Pasupata and Mahesvara respectively, the Mahadeva intervened to save the worlds. We have many wonderful stories that capture the highest of imaginations and issues but the contemporary world needs a new form to convey these stories and messages. New ways to show these icons. I use some Nintendo woman character in a spaceship as the Avatar for Kalki. Who says it has to be a man and has to be on a horse?

The MBH and Ramayan TV series no matter how PC and not up to par on many aspects, is still one of the best mass mediums to convey Indic thought processes into at least Indian minds. New writers such as Amish Tripathi, who write new "stories" around our legendary heroes should be encouraged, for they try to keep the spirit of the culture intact. I do have a problem with some contemporary writers who put a very negative interpretation to our civilizational literature but are popular nevertheless.

Our problem is not with science fiction, we just need to be bold enough and reuse that method, like our ancients did with new tools and our messages. I felt the movie Avatar, regardless of where the actual inspiration came from, represented an aspect of our civilizational messages.

[Baikul]

I'd like to advance the hypothesis that consistently high quality science fiction (by 'consistent' I mean a number of authors writing/specializing in the genre) is one sign of the technological advancement of a society. It feels to me that the best science fiction tends to come from societies with an established base of scientific and technological accomplishments. Of course, the caveat is that I have only ever read in English and Hindi.

And this thread is serendipitous because I've been wondering where to put the following observation on BR for months now. As a hardcore reader of fiction and select non fiction, the one reason i envy the Chinese is that they're establishing themselves in this field. I'd strongly recommend Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem trilogy. I found it easily the best sci fi work I've read in a long long time.

[Rahulsidhu]

I just reread the Foundation series. The storyline actually has the Foundation develop a 'religion' based on technologies, which it then uses to psychologically dominate other worlds. And the reason for technological decline is given as follows

religious/mystical mumbo jumbo => decline in 'scientific temper' => technological stagnation => poverty/"backwardness"

Its worth mentioning that the Foundation series was inspired by Asimov's reading of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". In this aspect, perhaps it borrows more from Hindu metaphysics (cyclical nature of time, decline and re-birth). It seems to have been an important theme for American intellectuals in the mid 20th century (see e.g. Carrol Quigley's work).

All this stands much in contrast to the dominant "Whig History" ideas in western academia which more or less completely dominated American political thinking later in the century. Prominent examples: Fukuyama and "the end of history", Obama's "long arc of the universe bends towards justice".

[sudarshan]

Continuing with Isaac Asimov - Robot novels.

These are well known for Asimov's 3 laws of robotics. Although the stories are quite well written, I feel that like most western authors, he struggles with the concept of a soul or having consciousness/free will. The robots are constrained to follow the 3 laws, which are nothing but neural pathways in their brains- but, they also seem to have conflicted thinking and erratic behaviour as if they have consciousness and free will, which machines do not have. In our world, the robots we have simply do as they are constructed and programmed, and we don't consider them to have consciousness ( do they?)

Asimov also underrates the dramatic sociological consequences that can happen when robots replace jobs on a large scale. I will come to this in the next post with a few novels that explore this dystopia.

The colored part above is what I was talking about in my earlier post. Western SF writers have repeatedly brought up this theme of - "if a machine gets complicated enough, it will develop human characteristics." By implication, our own humanity is simply a function of our vast number of interconnections in our own nervous system. Western SF writers have a great big blind spot towards a) animal consciousness (let alone the consciousness of plants, fish, amoeba, reptiles, etc.) b) the distinction between mind/ intellect/ soul. This is because of the blind spot inherent in the Abrahamic faiths themselves, towards all these notions. In fact, I think the Xtian stance is, that animals have no soul (hence don't need "saving" the way humans do). Animals simply exist to feed and entertain humans (humans have dominion over all the lesser life forms).

[ramana]

Baikal wrote

And this thread is serendipitous because I've been wondering where to put the following observation on BR for months now. As a hardcore reader of fiction and select non fiction, the one reason i envy the Chinese is that they're establishing themselves in this field. I'd strongly recommend Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem trilogy. I found it easily the best sci fi work I've read in a long long time.

A forum should serve members aspirations. Always feel free to write and let the thought have it's own power.

Saraswati speaks through us. And suppressing it is suppressing her blessing.

[arun]

A tad peripheral to the thread.

Reading Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Canto’s series and have progressed to the second in the series, the Fall of Hyperion.

Enjoying the read.

[csaurabh]

I'd like to advance the hypothesis that consistently high quality science fiction (by 'consistent' I mean a number of authors writing/specializing in the genre) is one sign of the technological advancement of a society. It feels to me that the best science fiction tends to come from societies with an established base of scientific and technological accomplishments. Of course, the caveat is that I have only ever read in English and Hindi.

And this thread is serendipitous because I've been wondering where to put the following observation on BR for months now. As a hardcore reader of fiction and select non fiction, the one reason i envy the Chinese is that they're establishing themselves in this field. I'd strongly recommend Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem trilogy. I found it easily the best sci fi work I've read in a long long time.

Well, this does not seem to be the case for countries like France, Germany, Russia etc. which are advanced in tech but produce hardly any SF these days. It's all monopolized by USA. China is an interesting case because it is a non-western country and can perhaps articulate a different idea of future than that of the west.

I have only read the first book of Liu Cixin (three body problem ), and while it is excellent, I don't think its radically different or new. It's basically an alien invasion storyline, told from Chinese point of view ( rather than the usual American ). I was looking to find some Confucian , Daoist or Buddhist philosophy in it but there's very little of it.

[ramana]

Csaurabh, Western Europe laid the foundation for SF via Manchuhausen and on to Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

[sudarshan]

France, Russia, Japan etc. - do they produce any worthwhile fiction anymore, at least stuff which reaches the world market? Germany is a very weird case. Has it ever produced any fiction, which reached the worldwide market, and attained critical or classical acclaim? Most German literature is poetry. Faust, by Goethe, is poetry. German is kind of like Telugu - sounds rather harsh in everyday use, but becomes something divine in poetry or song. What universally acclaimed fictional literature can you name (prose, not poetry) by any German author, all the way from the 1500's to today? Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse? German prose is usually non-fiction. It seems the old stereotype of Germans, that they suck at telling stories (especially in ending them), might be true after all.

As for France, Russia, Japan - it is a question of not producing any fiction (in our times, at least - the French and Russians have of course produced some fine writers in the past). If the French, Russians, Japanese, started writing fiction, I'd wager that a significant fraction would be science fiction, just like in English.

See, in the USA or UK, there is a massive "me too" and bandwagoning effect. "Robinson Crusoe," the first modern English novel, started the novel tradition in English (actually, in all of Europe). That was just a general "novel." "Dracula" started off the era of "me-too-ing" in the horror/ gothic/ vampire genre. Verne and Wells started off the science fiction bandwagon. Novels like "Gone with the Wind," "The Great Gatsby," or "To Kill a Mockingbird" get classified in the genre of the "great American novel," and currently, writers in the USA yearn to write the next "great American novel." Then there's literary fiction - Willa Cather, et. al. Then thrillers (MacLean, for instance). Novels like "Coma" started off the bandwagoning on the medical thriller genre. Then spiritual fiction, children's fiction, young adult, fantasy, whatever. Agents or editors in the USA or UK expect you to specify the genre in which you're writing, when you query them. Then they coolly tell you "I don't handle that genre," or "that genre doesn't sell anymore." You can't just query them saying you've "written a novel." They want to know the market you're targeting, and that is decided by the genre.

Ordinary citizens in the USA or UK yearn to be writers, they churn out tons of novels each year, most of them mediocrities or absurdities. Some gems make it out of this mass, of course. It is the same with science fiction, it's just that a significant chunk of those aspiring writers choose the science fiction bandwagon. Soft science fiction is very easy to write - just like in fantasy, you get to make up the rules. You get to hand-wave away any holes or gaps, saying "science will be like that in the future era I'm writing about." Hard science fiction, on the other hand, is defined as SF which conforms to the *known* rules, and doesn't seek to bend them or hand-wave them away. Much harder to write this stuff.

[ramana]

Sudarshan Please take a look at Nobel prize for literature. How many were awarded to Germans after WWII?

On tour of Germany last year many bookshops crowded with titles. Unfortunatley I cant read German. Let me assure you there are writers.

[sudarshan]

Sudarshan Please take a look at Nobel prize for literature. How many were awarded to Germans after WWII?

On tour of Germany last year many bookshops crowded with titles. Unfortunatley I cant read German. Let me assure you there are writers.

I agree saar, there are German writers. I've read many of them (in German). Some of the better known ones, like Thomas Mann, and some more obscure ones as well. I've also read many of the poetical works (like Faust), again in German.

My point was - how many of them are internationally recognizable? Let's say you ask a non-French-speaking person about "Count of Monte Cristo," or "Hunchback of Notre Dame," or a non-Russian speaker about Chekhov or Pushkin. Then ask a non-German speaking person about Gunter Grass' "Tin Drum" or Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice." Which one is more recognizable, more international, more accepted as "classic and universal?" That was all I was saying. Which means there could well be science fiction originating from Germany, only it doesn't reach a wider audience. There are writers in Ethiopia or Somalia as well, probably well known locally, African writers have also won Nobel prizes, but the recognizability by an average citizen of a different country from a different continent isn't there. Maybe it's just marketing, Germany has got a pretty bad rep and also got in late in the colonial game, just got left out of a lot of the "good stuff" that the rest of Europe was in on. Or maybe German lit just doesn't have the appeal.

Going OT, so I won't belabor this .

[Dipanker]

Sudarshan Please take a look at Nobel prize for literature. How many were awarded to Germans after WWII?

On tour of Germany last year many bookshops crowded with titles. Unfortunatley I cant read German. Let me assure you there are writers.

TIDBITS:
Just looked up WIKI, since WWII a total of 8 nobel in literature have been awarded to German, 5 from Germany and 3 outside Germany ( didn't know Hermann Hesse lived in Switzerland! ).

----------------------------------
(In the same period French has 8 nobels, Russian has 5 nobels, and Japanese has 2. Haruki Murakami, the Japanese writer is quite well read around the world - translated in 50 different languages, I think it is matter of time before he gets his nobel. Another person of Japanese origin Kazuo Ishiguro won nobel in 2016, but he writes in English and is considered a British writer.)

[csaurabh]

Keep in mind its not just about literature ( though that is an important part ). There's also TV, movies and video games. USA is dominant in all of them, almost to a monopoly. These may be more important these days seeing that these media have much more reach these days.

The me-too bandwagoning effect could explain why so much fiction is produced in US/UK. Vampire genre is a good example, it started out with Bram Stoker's Dracula, and now we have all these ridiculous books/TV series like 'True blood', 'New moon' ,etc. Mind you all this stuff is quite popular in India among new gen because of internet as mass downloads.

[panduranghari]

Chinese are into the game too. I read a very good SF book by Cixin Liu called ' Three Body Problem'. China wants to be a part of the arrangement where west and china are spoken about, with regards to advances in sciences, in the same terms.

[csaurabh]

Now I want to go into the topic of technology unemployment - ie. replacing humans with robots.

This is now no longer science fiction. It is the Mother of all disruptions that is set to go off within the next few years. Automation is already hitting the IT sector hard, same with manufacturing, even in India. And that's not even counting all the jobs that haven't been automated yet in India, such as farm labours, construction, etc.

Technology destroying jobs isn't new. It's been going on since the industrial revolution. What most western thinkers fail to take into account is that the industrial revolution didn't destroy the old jobs in just the Western countries. Rather, all the workers in the colonized countries lost their jobs as well,and fell into poverty. While the workers in England got jobs in the new factories that had come up, India was completely de-industrialized, allegedly to a point that even a needle could not be manufactured in India. In other words, the industrialization of the West was not an isolated development in its own society- it involved destruction, colonization and extracting resources from all other places in the world.

We may be poised to repeat this process in the 21st century, but this time, AI, software and robots will simultaneously hit multiple sectors of the economy and there is no place for the workers to go. Education for new jobs etc. is proposed but that is a pipe dream, because first, many of the 'new jobs' ( like data scientist ) are IQ-limited, and there's only some extent that you can raise a person's intelligence through education. And second, there are only a limited number of such jobs , and those could also be replaced by automation down the line.

One way to solve the problem would be to give everyone some small welfare and have them play computer games or whatever. Unfortunately this solution is terrible because it erases a person's self worth and makes him useless. We as human beings ( and especially males ) evolved to work. Without work, we cannot lead a meaningful life. The War on work threatens to destroy societies. This is quite relevant in the Indian context as well. Is it really sensible to replace fishermen with automated fishing boats. Yes, every now and then a cyclone can come along and kill fishermen. But that's part of the appeal. Ancient societies coped with such losses, and we can do so as well. If you have all the fishermen unemployed and spend all their time playing games , how is that better than what was there previously. Have we really improved any thing.

[csaurabh]

With this in mind, it is instructive to explore some of the older science fiction that talks about the problem.

"Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut is absolutely amazing and incredibly on the dot about certain things. Written in 1952, this book depicts a dystopia in which the only well employed people are a few managers and engineers, selected by their IQ. The 'dumb people' are mostly unemployed, under the guise of working at some repair services ( which are very rare ), or in the Army (which fights no wars ). Womens work has also been automated by home appliances ( this was before feminism influenced women to join workforce in large numbers ), so they are kind of useless too.

Although the technology used is 1950s imagination ( punched cards using computers, etc. ) , the book is still perfectly relevant to what is going on now. Vonnegut makes it clear that an automated society would not in fact produce "heaven on earth", despite what material comforts it may bring. Furthermore he highlights how the technological changes are destructive towards ancient societies by using the metaphor of the Ghost Shirt Indians.

Excerpt

"The white man had broken promise after promise to the Indians, killed off most of the game, taken most of the Indians' land, and handed the Indians bad beatings every time they'd offered any resistance," said Lasher.
"Poor Injuns," murmured Paul.
"This is serious," said Finnerty. "Listen to what he's telling you."
"With the game and land and ability to defend themselves gone," said Lasher, "the Indians found out that all the things they used to take pride in doing, all the things that had made them feel important, all the things that used to gain them prestige, all the ways in which they used to justify their existence - they found that all those things were going or gone. Great hunters had nothing to hunt. Great fighters did not come back from charging into repeating-arms fire. Great leaders could lead the people nowhere but into death in hopeless attack, or deeper into wastelands. Great religious leaders could no longer show that the old religious beliefs were the way to victory and plenty."
Paul, suggestible under the drug, was deeply disturbed by the plight of the redskins. "Golly."
"The world had changed radically for the Indians," said Lasher. "It had become a white man's world, and Indian ways in a white man's world were irrelevant. It was impossible to hold the old Indian values in the changed world. The only thing they could do in the changed world was to become second-rate white men or wards of the white men."
"Or they could make one last fight for the old values," said Finnerty with relish.
"And the Ghost Dance religion," said Lasher, "was that last, desperate defense of the old values. Messiahs appeared, the way they're always ready to appear, to preach magic that would restore the game, the old values, the old reasons for being. There were new rituals and new songs that were supposed to get rid of the white men by magic. And some of the more warlike tribes that still had a little physical fight left in them added a flourish of their own - the Ghost Shirt."
"Oho," said Paul.
"They were going to ride into battle one last time," said Lasher, "in magic shirts that white men's bullets couldn't go through."
"Luke! Hey, Luke!" called Finnerty. "Stop the mimeo machine a second and come on over here."
Paul heard footsteps shuffling across the damp floor. He opened his eyes to see Luke Lubbock, his features sour with the tragic stoicism of a dispossessed redskin, standing by his bed, wearing a white shirt fringed in an imitation of a buckskin shirt, and decorated with thunderbirds and stylized buffalo worked into the fabric with brightly insulated bits of wire.
"Ug," said Paul.
"Ug," said Luke, without hesitation, deep in his role.
"This isn't any joke, Paul," said Finnerty.
"Everything's a joke until the drug wears off," said Lasher.
"Does Luke think he's bulletproof?" said Paul.
"It's the symbolism of the thing!" said Finnerty. "Don't you get it yet?"
"I expect," said Paul amiably, dreamily. "Sure. You bet. I guess."
"What is the symbolism?" asked Finnerty.
"Luke Lubbock wants his buffaloes back."
"Paul - come on, snap out of it!" said Finnerty.
"Okey dokey."
"Don't you see, Doctor?" said Lasher. "The machines are to practically everybody what the white men were to the Indians. People are finding that, because of the way the machines are changing the world, more and more of their old values don't apply any more. People have no choice but to become second-rate machines themselves, or wards of the machines."

The 'Indians' in the story are Native Americans - but they could just as well apply to us, or any other native society.

Furthermore he highlights the trouble with using IQ as an estimate of self worth. This is what is going on now with things like craze for IIT-JEE and other such things.

excerpts

Used to be there was a lot of damn fool things a dumb b-astard could do to be great, but the machines fixed that. You know, used to be you could go to sea on a big clipper ship or a fishing ship and be a big hero in a storm. Or maybe you could be a pioneer and go out west and lead the people and make trails and chase away Indians and all that. Or you could be a cowboy, or all kinds of dangerous things, and still be a dumb b-astard.
"Now the machines take all the dangerous jobs, and the dumb b-astards just get tucked away in big bunches of prefabs that look like the end of a game of Monopoly, or in barracks, and there's nothing for them to do but set there and kind of hope for a big fire where maybe they can run into a burning building in front of everybody and run out with a baby in their arms. Or maybe hope - though they don't say so out loud because the last one was so terrible - for another war. Course, there isn't going to be another one.
"And, oh, I guess machines have made things a lot better. I'd be a fool to say they haven't, though there's plenty who say they haven't, and I can see what they mean, all right. It does seem like the machines took all the good jobs, where a man could be true to hisself and false to nobody else, and left all the silly ones.

"Maybe. Something like that. Things are certainly set up for a class war based on conveniently established lines of demarkation. And I must say that the basic assumption of the present setup is a grade-A incitement to violence: the smarter you are, the better you are. Used to be that the richer you were, the better you were. Either one is, you'll admit, pretty tough for the have-not's to take. The criterion of brains is better than the one of money, but" - he held his thumb and forefinger about a sixteenth of an inch apart - "about that much better."
"It's about as rigid a hierarchy as you can get," said Finnerty. "How's somebody going to up his I.Q.?"
"Exactly," said Lasher. "And it's built on more than just brain power - it's built on special kinds of brain power. Not only must a person be bright, he must be bright in certain approved, useful directions: basically, management or engineering."

Player Piano is an amazing novel. You can read it online for free, and I would highly recommend it.