Madison Rye Progress

Marsh writing stream https://picarto.tv/SlowHours

mine is that soft scifi > hard scifi

The vast majority of high-concept science fiction has very little to do with science, and much more to do with an audience that (a) would like for magic to exist and (b) wants to be taken seriously as members of a modern society who future improves over its past.

This insecurity is most profound in people who insist that they like science fiction but dislike "fantasy."

Science is often set dressing, sure. It is the nuts and bolts to fantasy's wood and stone. It is the forward looking counterpart to fantasy's reimagining of the past.

Hope, however, takes many forms, and some of those forms include trying to find a way to see what might become if we try for X, Y, or Z. Try for X, perhaps, and we get flying cars and infinite clean energy. Try for Y and we may get a nuclear war that leaves us forced to band together for survival, a concrete manifestation of that which we feel compelled to do against invisible forces of adversity.

Or, in the case of @post-self, try for Z and find ourselves in a less than ideal world that still allows us to love, still gives us goals to attain, lets us hope for yet more, even as we have already conquered some of the problems today.

Feeling overwhelmed by a relationship structure that leaves your partners feeling unfulfilled? That is okay, parallelization of relationships offers an out.

Want to strive towards perfection? Towards longevity and continuity of life? Towards some metastability that does not leave you feeling bored? Want to sit on your ass and play games all day or try every coffee on offer in an infinite cafe? All of this and more is at your disposal.

Hell, want to be a skunk? Lovely! You can just do that.

I would rather allow the existence of technology indistinguishable from magic if that will let me imagine a future where I am happy. If I wind up curating an audience and co-authorship that does not mind technological hand-waving so long as it allows us to collaborate on a world where the villain hides and ensures that every single normal person gets to keep living a better-than-okay life forever, who is allowed to change and grow as a person (positive), then I will have considered my work a success in the face of those who would prefer that we read only of the present at the expense of the hope that is most readily accessible to us. Insecurity, indeed.

Alas, it is hopeless of me to reply to a hot-takes post that includes the tag #shots fired. The goal of these is never to start a dialogue but to set up a disclaimer: I am going to insult you, but you cannot reply without looking like a weak-willed quibbler.

Ah well.

Hiii, here is a new chapter of Marsh for $5+ patronfriends.

At Rainbow's End dos Riãos:

My down-tree, Boiling Maw, lives a life of intervention. She intervenes via technology. She intervenes via her voice. She intervenes via her very existence, some heart of punk within her pushing her to ever greater heights, where she might press herself between warring factions and call them both to account.

Or call them fucking idiots who need to get their shit together. Whichever.

Hydra, my cross-tree, is the angry scientist who will berate the public for not getting their shit together as a form of teaching and education. He pushes knowledge into the minds of the public by force of will and force of personality. He's incredibly fucking funny about it, but that humor is a tool he wields

Me, though, I have gentled over the years. I've picked up the habit of communication, of instruction and — dare I say it? — politicking. I speak with the warring factions and the public both, but I have gentled. I speak calmly and rationally. I speak with excitement and energy, yes, but never with a raised voice.

But do not get me wrong, even with the advances that the Artemisians have brought us, we are on thin ice.

Thin fucking ice.

We walk the blade of the razor like it is some game. Some joke! Some awful fucking jape where we might slip to one side and tumble into extinction. But look! There on the other, there with just a little fucking bit of effort, a little kicking of capitalist ass, a little chopping of heads, likes us just getting our fucking shit together.

All we need to do is fucking try for once, because buddy, we are three fucking steps from the end of the razor. I don't just feel like we're running short on time. We are running short on time.