And every single fucking time it goes bad for the people involved
Like literally every single instance of a species being uplifted in sci fi is a cautionary tale about interference with others, and usually has the uplifted species be violent/used as a weapon
All (good) sci-fi is an exploration of issues that already exist in our world, just with the added distance of future/tech that allows those issues to take an even greater shape.
This whole “uplifting primates” bs is just sci-fi talk for neoliberal development economics, it’s just saying the quiet part out loud, in that people from poor countries are an inherently inferior species.
The Culture Series would like a word. Although sometimes when they interfere things do go bad and that’s part of the narrative, but the majority of time they don’t interfere it results in self destruction of civilizations
i dont think the Culture ever engaged in anything so crude as this suggestion. they do really fantastical manipulations of biology and physics but just to themselves and minds. the less intelligent animals are still pets
I’ve actually read some utopian literature. It’s cool to see what people in the past saw as an ideal future. We could use a little rebirth of the genre tbh
Maybe you’re right, maybe the Tomorrowland concept is what the world is missing right now? Everything is a conflict to be overcome, noone imagines everyone just working together to achieve amazing things.
And every single fucking time it goes bad for the people involved
Like literally every single instance of a species being uplifted in sci fi is a cautionary tale about interference with others, and usually has the uplifted species be violent/used as a weapon
Literal fucking Torment Nexus bullshit
All (good) sci-fi is an exploration of issues that already exist in our world, just with the added distance of future/tech that allows those issues to take an even greater shape.
This whole “uplifting primates” bs is just sci-fi talk for neoliberal development economics, it’s just saying the quiet part out loud, in that people from poor countries are an inherently inferior species.
The Culture Series would like a word. Although sometimes when they interfere things do go bad and that’s part of the narrative, but the majority of time they don’t interfere it results in self destruction of civilizations
i dont think the Culture ever engaged in anything so crude as this suggestion. they do really fantastical manipulations of biology and physics but just to themselves and minds. the less intelligent animals are still pets
Yeah you right, I’ve gotta read more of those tbh
Stuff doesn’t go bad per se in 2001, where it’s heavily implied that humans were uplifted. It just gets real trippy and then the sequels sucked.
My thought too. Isn’t this the prime example people think of when they think of uplifting in scifi?
The Uplift series begs to differ.
Would you bother reading/watching/playing scifi media that didn’t have some sort of conflict, like everything just went great?
I wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean I want the sci fi conflict to happen in real life.
I’ve actually read some utopian literature. It’s cool to see what people in the past saw as an ideal future. We could use a little rebirth of the genre tbh
Maybe you’re right, maybe the Tomorrowland concept is what the world is missing right now? Everything is a conflict to be overcome, noone imagines everyone just working together to achieve amazing things.
I’ve read a couple utopian novels where the conflict is largely interpersonal drama against a backdrop of an ecologically sustainable world.