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from the if-a-kessler-syndrome-is-not-triggered-first dept.
Charlie Stross, a science fiction writer based in Scotland, has written a post about different possible approaches to space colonization. He includes a discussion of several different models.
While the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is evidently invalid, a weaker version—that language influences thought—is much harder to argue against. When we talk about a spaceship, a portmanteau word derived from "[outer] space" and "ship", we bring along certain unstated assumptions about shipping that are at odds with the physical parameters of a human-friendly life support environment for traversing interplanetary distances. Ships, in the vernacular, have captains and a crew who obey the captain via a chain of command, they carry cargo or passengers, they travel between ports or to a well-defined destination, they may have a mission whether it be scientific research or military. And of these aspects, only the scientific research angle is remotely applicable to any actually existing interplanetary vehicle, be it a robot probe like Psyche or one of the Apollo program flights.
(Pedant's footnote: while the Apollo crews had a nominal commander, actual direction came from Mission Control back on Earth and the astronauts operated as a team, along lines very similar to those later formalized as Crew Resource Management in commercial aviation.)
Anyway, a point I've already chewed over on this blog is that a spaceship is not like a sea-going vessel, can't be operated like a sea-going vessel, and the word "ship" in its name feeds into various cognitive biases that may be actively harmful to understanding what it is.
Which leads me to the similar term "space colony": the word colony drags in all sorts of historical baggage, and indeed invokes several models of how an off-Earth outpost might operate, all of which invoke very dangerous cognitive biases!
There are few more models which he missed.
Previously:
(2022) Moon Life 2030
(2022) Why Werner Herzog Thinks Human Space Colonization "Will Inevitably Fail"
(2020) Elon Musk Will Run Into Trouble Setting Up a Martian Government, Lawyers Say
(2018) Who Owns The Moon? A Space Lawyer Answers
(2017) Stephen Hawking Urges Nations to Pursue Lunar Base and Mars Landing
(2015) NASA Working on 3D Printers to Print Objects Using Martian Regolith
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday October 16 2024, @08:59PM
What was the copyright date?
His old books were awesome, consider "The Atrocity Archives" which was around Y2K and its an amazing setting and world building, despite comic book level bad guys and not much of a story (it's a quick read)
Sometime before "The Annihiliation Score" or "The Delirium Brief" subjectively my opinion is he started hanging out with the wrong crowd, the type where authoritarianism and groupthink prevails and moral supremacy is determined by who gets triggered and reeeeeeeee's the most ridiculously intensely, and boy oh boy does that guy reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee intensely. Imagine how unpleasant it would be to watch the cast of a really stereotypical unwatchable daytime news-talk show on MSNBC trying to play Pathfinder RPG while maxing out their snark and sneer, then put that to paper and that's how I feel about his later era of books. "The Labyrinth Index" for example was essentially unreadable.
ALL of the pre-2010 novellas and short stories were awesome. "Down on the farm" was amazing. "Overtime" was at least pretty funny to anyone who ever worked in IT and carried a pager over a holiday.
I'd like to enjoy "Escape from Yokai Land" but the copyright date is 2022 so I'm probably going to hate it because of Stross's ... outlook on life in the current year; I'd be mildly intrigued if any Soylentils have a book report on that. A new "Bob Howard" story? Oh yes yes yes. But written by 2020's Stross? Oh no no no.
The funny thing about "The Fuller Memorandum" is I actually enjoy J.F.C. Fuller's real world books, hilariously enough. Fuller is absolutely fascinating to read if you like 20th century setting combined arms strategy games, either cardboard or played on computer ("Steel Panthers" game series and all that). In the UK they have this "thing", right, where biographies are actually written (or at least ghost written) by interesting people and they discuss interesting topics unlike USA biographies that pretty much peaked with "Paris Hilton's Simple Life" TV series, Churchill's books in contrast are actually pretty interesting. Yeah, that Churchill, the politician, super interesting. Now Stross and his fictional setting was inevitably attracted to JFC Fuller because Fuller had some ... unusual philosophical-religious-political views aside from his fascinating military career. For USA peeps everyone seems to "know" the mythology of General Mitchell being the "Father of the US Air Force" or whatever, and its not entirely incorrect that JFC could be considered "The father of combined arms military strategy in the UK" or perhaps "The father of mechanized warfare in the UK". JFC is a super interesting dude and it was hilarious to see him mixed up in a Stross book.
Maybe if you or other soylentils have ever read John Ringo's books, can relate to the "mixed bag" concept, where some parts are really good which might make it easier to ignore the not-so-good parts? I still think the "Legacy of the Aldenata" needs a movie/miniseries, although it would have to be created by competent people which means no Hollywood, obviously.