[Plura-list] 1900s futurism
Cory Doctorow
doctorow at craphound.com
Thu Mar 7 12:31:35 EST 2024
Read today's issue online at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/07/the-gernsback-continuum/
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At long last, the San Francisco stop of the book tour for my new novel "The Bezzle" has been finalized: I'll be at the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch on Wednesday, March 13th, in conversation with Robin Sloan!
https://sfpl.org/events/2024/03/13/author-cory-doctrow-bezzle
Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle:
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/cory-doctorow-novel-collection-tor-books-books
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Today's links
* 1900s futurism: Karl Schroeder on the profound conservativism of 20th Century sf.
* Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
* This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023
* Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
* Recent appearances: Podcasts, events and more.
* Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
* Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
* Colophon: All the rest.
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☄️ 1900s futurism
I'm profoundly skeptical of the idea that the future can be predicted, and doubly skeptical that sf writers are any kind of prophet. The former grotesque fatalism (if the future can be predicted, then what we do doesn't matter); the latter is tragicomic hubris.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/07/the-gernsback-continuum/#wheres-my-jetpack
That said, few people have been more consistently useful in understanding and anticipating (and yes, building) the future than my friend and colleague Karl Schroeder, whom I've known since I was 16 years old. Karl was the first person I heard say the world "internet." Also: "fractal," "World Wide Web," "ftp," and numerous other touchstones of the future just over the horizon.
Karl is, in fact, a futurist ("foresight consultant") who approaches the work with the same shrewd insight, wild imagination and humility that he brings to his fiction. In a new essay written with both his futurist and sf writer hats on, he nails down the toxic shadow cast by the 20th century sf, or, as he calls it, "The Science Fiction of the 1900s":
https://kschroeder.substack.com/p/the-science-fiction-of-the-1900s
Karl starts by describing the odd "double vision" of the future of the 1900s. On the one hand, many of us (myself included) were convinced that nuclear armageddon was inevitable. Unlike the unhinged architects of the nuclear arms-race, realists understood that a nuclear war would effectively *end* the future. As Einstein put it, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
But the flipside of that certainty that the future would end with the first nuclear strike was the belief that if we could just somehow walk the tightrope over the chasm of nuclear holocaust, we'd emerge in a future worth looking forward to: "a new era of peace and prosperity for all."
Contrast that with the existential dread of today's polycrisis: environmental collapse and political decay up to and including fascism. These aren't the binary proposition of nuclear annihilation vs Utopia - rather, they're a continuum of worse-and-better outcomes of every description. As Karl writes: "It’s not that simple. Our future now is an exhausting spectrum of scenarios, each with its own promise, and its own problems."
For Karl, we have entered a new epoch, but we've dragged in the long-expired way of imagining (and hence creating and navigating) the future with us. What makes this a new epoch? For Karl, it's the kind of future on our horizon. He cites Charles C Mann’s *1491*, a superb history of the Americas before Columbus:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/107178/1491-second-edition-by-charles-c-mann/9781400032051/readers-guide/
*1491* radically reframes "the patchwork of propaganda and inference" that makes up the received narrative of the so-called "New World." It describes a land of flourishing cities, art, science and culture "in the Americas while Rome was just getting its act together." Contact with colonizing Europeans was a disaster for First Nations people, who call this period "The Invasion." It was an epochal break.
Futurism is an inextricably historical discipline. The willingness of some settler-colonialists states to consider this epochal break forces us to reframe our literal place in history, the story of the land under our feet. At its best, this futuro-historical work can begin the long work of reconciliation, as with the Canadian government's promise of $23b in reparations for the First Nations people who were kidnapped as children and sent to murderous "residential schools" before, during and after the Sixties Scoop.
The sf of the 1900s is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was. It's a literature that was steered by open fascists like John W Campbell, who explicitly saw the literature as a means of inculcating a societal narrative of the triumph of white, corporate technocracy over all other forms of government:
https://locusmag.com/2019/11/cory-doctorow-jeannette-ng-was-right-john-w-campbell-was-a-fascist/
Karl isn't the first sf writer to try to overturn this orthodoxy - indeed, it was continuously challenged by radicals within the field, as with the New Wave, personified by the likes of Samuel Delany and Judith Merril (who both mentored and introduced Karl and me):
https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/13/better-to-have-loved/#neofuturians
The cyberpunks took a good hard run at it, too. For plenty of writers (including me), Bruce Sterling and William Gibson's 1981 story "The Gernsback Continuum" was a wake-up call:
http://writing2.richmond.edu/jessid/eng216/gernsback.pdf
Not for nothing, William Gibson has long insisted that his 1984 classic *Neuromancer* should be read as utopian: after all, it depicts a future in which the inevitable nuclear war only reduces a few cities to radioactive ash, sparing the rest of the planet.
Bruce Sterling once paid me the supreme compliment of describing a 2003 story I wrote about the ways that algorithms will enshittify self-driving cars as "making everybody else in the business look like they live in a dark basement growing on the mulch from old STAR TREK scripts":
https://craphound.com/stories/2005/10/12/human-readable/
Schroeder - along with today's new radical sf writer cohort - wants to fashion a fictional futurism that is fit for this world and its crisis: "in our modern technological society, science fiction tells us what to spend our time and money on." The fact that our mediocre billionaires are mired in the sf of the 1900s means that we're getting some decidedly old-fashioned futures.
For Karl, Musk is a poster-child for this profoundly conservative, backwards-looking vision: "He’s fighting the intellectual battles of the last century, a 1900s hero dropped into the 2000s with an unlimited budget to reshape the future to fit the era he’s from." Musk's obsessions - "Space flight. Settling Mars. Cyberpunk-style brain-computer interfaces. Artificial Intelligence. Self-driving electric cars. Humanoid robots." - are 1900s science fiction.
Ironically, much of this fiction labels itself "hard sf," despite the fact that interstellar travel is utter fantasy - as is mass-scale, near-term interplanetary civilization:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead
Karl wants "a future for the 2000s." He points to some efforts to make this happen, like Neal Stephenson's *Hieroglyph* anthology, edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer:
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/hieroglyph-ed-finnkathryn-cramer
The "Hieroglyph" is Stephenson's shorthand for a recognizable, tangible, meme-able gizmo or other touchstone for a 2000s-era vision of the future - a replacement for jetpacks and flying cars. Karl's story for the anthology, "Degrees of Freedom," focuses on an abstraction (governance: "the single most important thing humanity can focus its creative energies on right now"), and by Karl's own admission, it's not quite the hieroglyph Stephenson was looking for.
But Karl *did* come up with a hieroglyph in a later work, the "deodands" of 2019's *Stealing Worlds* - a software agent "that believes it is some natural system, such as a river or forest, and acts in its own self-interest, that being the preservation and thriving of that natural system":
https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/18/karl-schroeders-stealing-worlds-visionary-science-fiction-of-a-way-through-the-climate-and-inequality-crises/
(My own contribution to *Hieroglyph* was very gadget heavy - "The Man Who Sold the Moon," about autonomous lunar 3D printers. It won the John W Campbell award, shortly before that award was renamed as part of the mass reconsideration of Campbell triggered by Jeanette Ng's 2019 Hugo acceptance speech):
https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/
I've been impressed with Karl since the day I met him in 1987. There's no one whose thoughts on the future I'm more interested in hearing. I don't think that's a coincidence, either: Karl is an autodidact who was raised by a Mennonite TV repairman - the first TV repair shop in the Canadian prairies. If you want to understand the future, try being raised by someone who takes that kind of deliberate approach to which technology to adopt, and how.
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☄️ Hey look at this
* Maria Farrell on The Bezzle https://crookedtimber.org/2024/03/06/the-bezzle/
* Behind F1's Velvet Curtain https://web.archive.org/web/20240301170542/https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a46975496/behind-f1-velvet-curtain/ (h/t Kottke)
* LOCUS 2024 FUNDRAISER https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/locus-mag-science-fiction-fantasy-horror-2024#/
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☄️ This day in history
#20yrsago Mel Gibson: violent, cynical Jew-baiter? https://web.archive.org/web/20040501000000*/http://www.iht.com/articles/110553.html
#15yrsago Excellent public speaking advice https://web.archive.org/web/20090310044557/https://duncandavidson.com/2009/03/dear-speakers.html
#15yrsago Detroit and the future of America https://www.ft.com/content/2b815a94-0863-11de-8a33-0000779fd2ac
#10yrsago Netflix disables Chrome’s developer console https://memex.craphound.com/2014/03/07/netflix-disables-chromes-developer-console/
#10yrsago What happens when you opt your kids out of standardized tests https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/03/standardized-testing-i-opted-my-kids-out-the-schools-freaked-out-now-i-know-why.html
#10yrsago First clinical LSD trial in 40 years shows positive results in easing anxiety of dying patients https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/health/lsd-reconsidered-for-therapy.html?referrer=
#5yrsago Ajit Pai has been touting new broadband investment after he murdered Net Neutrality, but he’s been relying on impossible data from a company called Barrierfree https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/ajit-pais-rosy-broadband-deployment-claim-may-be-based-on-gigantic-error/
#5yrsago Firefox is getting more browser fingerprinting protection courtesy of Tor Browser’s “letterboxing” technique https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1407366
#5yrsago It’s on: House Democrats introduce their promised Net Neutrality legislation https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/democrats-introduce-save-the-internet-act-to-restore-net-neutrality/
#5yrsago The “Tragedy of the Commons” was invented by a white supremacist based on a false history, and it’s toxic bullshit https://twitter.com/mmildenberger/status/1102604887223750657
#5yrsago The EU hired a company that had been lobbying for the Copyright Directive to make a (completely batshit) video to sell the Copyright Directive https://memex.craphound.com/2019/03/07/the-eu-hired-a-company-that-had-been-lobbying-for-the-copyright-directive-to-make-a-completely-batshit-video-to-sell-the-copyright-directive/
#5yrsago Zuckerberg announces a comprehensive plan for a new, privacy-focused Facebook, but fails to mention data sharing and ad targeting https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-zuckerberg-privacy-pivot/
#1yrago End to End https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/07/disenshittification/#e2e
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☄️ Upcoming appearances
* Tucson Festival of Books, Mar 9/10
https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676
* The Bezzle at San Francisco Public Library, Mar 13
https://sfpl.org/events/2024/03/13/author-cory-doctrow-bezzle
* Enshittification: How the Internet Went Bad and How to Get it Back (virtual), Mar 26
https://libcal.library.ubc.ca/event/3781006
* Wondercon Anaheim, Mar 29-31
https://www.comic-con.org/wc/
* The Bezzle at Anderson's Books (Chicago), Apr 17
https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1
* Torino Biennale Tecnologia (Apr 19-21)
https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia
* Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Winnipeg), May 2
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337?aff=oddtdtcreator
* Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival (May 5-11)
https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/
* Media Ecology Association keynote, Jun 6-9 (Amherst, NY)
https://media-ecology.org/convention
* American Association of Law Libraries keynote, (Chicago), Jul 21
https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/
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☄️ Recent appearances
* Is Social Media Becoming a Bit Shit? (The Briefing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvPlpMd1KEw
* Radioactive (KCRL)
https://krcl.org/blog/grist-investigates-doctorow-seed/
* The enshittification of music (Music Ally)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh20fD3XXbg
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☄️ Latest books
* The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).
* "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)
* "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
* "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.
* "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)
* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.
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☄️ Upcoming books
* Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025
* Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025
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☄️ Colophon
Today's top sources: John Naughton (https://memex.naughtons.org/).
Currently writing:
* A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING
* Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025
* Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM
* Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM
Latest podcast:
The Majority of Censorship is Self-Censorship https://craphound.com/news/2024/02/25/the-majority-of-censorship-is-self-censorship/
This work - excluding any serialized fiction - is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.
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"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
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