this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 11 months ago (5 children)

this is a classic sci fi plot

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

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Yeah you right, I've gotta read more of those tbh

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

My thought too. Isn't this the prime example people think of when they think of uplifting in scifi?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

The Uplift series begs to differ.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Would you bother reading/watching/playing scifi media that didn't have some sort of conflict, like everything just went great?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

I wouldn't, but that doesn't mean I want the sci fi conflict to happen in real life.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I've read a couple utopian novels where the conflict is largely interpersonal drama against a backdrop of an ecologically sustainable world.