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from the taking-personal-responsibility-for-humanities-failings dept.
The NYT reports that Naomi Oreskes, an historian of science at Harvard University, is attracting wide notice these days for a work of science fiction called “The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future,” that takes the point of view of an historian in 2393 explaining how “the Great Collapse of 2093” occurred. “Without spoiling the story,” Oreskes said in an interview, “I can tell you that a lot of what happens — floods, droughts, mass migrations, the end of humanity in Africa and Australia — is the result of inaction to very clear warnings” about climate change caused by humans." Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called “carbon combustion complex” that have turned the practice of science into political fodder.
Oreskes argues that scientists failed us, and in a very particular way: They failed us by being too conservative. Scientists today know full well that the "95 percent confidence limit" is merely a convention, not a law of the universe. Nonetheless, this convention, the historian suggests, leads scientists to be far too cautious, far too easily disrupted by the doubt-mongering of denialists, and far too unwilling to shout from the rooftops what they all knew was happening. "Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did."
Why target scientists in particular in this book? Simply because a distant future historian would target scientists too, says Oreskes. "If you think about historians who write about the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the collapse of the Mayans or the Incans, it's always about trying to understand all of the factors that contributed," Oreskes says. "So we felt that we had to say something about scientists."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by gznork26 on Thursday October 30 2014, @05:53PM
She's not the only one to write about the future of climate change from a fictional perspective. I recently wrote a 7-part series of short stories about just that, but the blame doesn't lie with scientists -- it's those who think they can profit from it. The first story starts here...
http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/short-story-bait/ [wordpress.com]
Khipu were Turing complete.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30 2014, @10:47PM
Nice stories. I think they could be great stories, with the right editor. Found a typo for you in part 5:
“What war?” Ferd said.
“The one were about to start.
“The one we're about to start.
(Score: 1) by gznork26 on Friday October 31 2014, @12:18AM
Thanks for spotting that. Even with the right editor, do you suppose there's a venue for that sort of thing?
Khipu were Turing complete.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @01:03AM
I have no clue about markets for SF, but this page popped up with a quick search (using Startpage.com),
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mslee/mag.html [cmu.edu]
Getting "found" might be part chance and part sweat? Who knows, you might be the one that soylentnews launches into a great career!!
(Score: 1) by gznork26 on Friday October 31 2014, @02:36AM
Kinda been there and done that, but it was a while ago. Venues wanted an exclusive on the story, so it could't be offered publicly like on my wordpress blog. Plus there's the fact that I didn't set out to write a series, so there wasn't a story arc sketched out when I started. I just wrote each one as it came, and decided where it should go and who it would be centered on one by one. That breaks the traditional way of constructing a story, and probably hurts my chances overall, but it's my style and has been for years. I'd be happy just getting a following. There are over 100 stories on the blog now, some of which seem to get random page hits from students looking for something. Also, since I don't focus on a genre, they'd have trouble pegging me, too. Whatever. If you enjoyed it, then I've made at least one person happy.
Khipu were Turing complete.