[p2p-research] Thinking about science fiction bias

[Andy Robinson]

On a slightly different aspect of the same topic - the social function of
sci-fi (and fantasy, utopia, dystopia, cyberpunk, steampunk, etc) is very
often expanding the boundaries of the thinkable in relation to the present,
for instance thinking otherness by suspending aspects of the present,
critiquing aspects of the present by a kind of reductio ad absurdum, or
critiquing by showing contingency and the possibility of at least
conceivability of other ways of being, or showing other ways which the
author thinks are better or worse, or even modelling aspects of the present
in a more abstract way.

In this context, the "alien" (or in fantasy, the demi-human - elves, orcs
and so on) often models the "otherness" of social settings - at its crudest,
other cultures and races (there's a long history of critiques of implicit
racism in sci-fi), or in more complex cases, aspects of humanity which are
feared or treated as different.  Hence one sees shifts over time between
aliens as threatening and as necessarily "evil", to friendly and supportive
aliens, and back again.

I noticed that 90s-era sci-fi was moving towards a liberal cosmopolitanism
reflecting the political conjuncture - the likes of Babylon 5 and Deep Space
9 models a situation where the humans are acting like a galactic UN, trying
to resolve insoluble conflicts among aliens, and facing dilemmas about
whether to intervene and take sides - very similar to the international
politics of today.  Plus also, a strong vein of conspiracy sci-fi, things
like the X-Files and the Matrix, expressing fears about the New World Order,
where the "alien" (other) becomes the dark side of the world government or
the conspirator.  More recently I think we're back with more traditional,
menacing aliens which pose an overwhelming threat - the Battlestar Galactica
remake for example, and Star Trek: Enterprise.

Hence - I don't think sci-fi aliens express an assessment of what aliens
would actually be like...  I think they express a projection of how humans
conceive otherness in a particular moment.

If Ryan is looking for explorations of transhumanism and effects on
subjectivity of robotics, AI, reconstruction of bodies, etc, this certainly
gets covered but most often in futuristic cyberpunk and dystopia rather than
"straight" sci-fi...  I'm thinking of things like Blade Runner, Ghost in the
Shell, Perdido Street Station, Spielberg's AI, Gattica, Total Recall, etc.

bw
Andy
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