@hohlm
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Trying to think of specifically ecomodernist examples, but ecomodernism is realatively new (last 5 years or so) and is fairly niche on top of that. With that said, Star Wars: The Old Republic’s interpretation of Alderaan looks to be fairly similar, if by accident.
Alderaan is depicted as having rather vertical cities surrounded by untamed forests. This vertical city layout fits the ecomodernist idea of trying to keep dense populations to be more efficient.I feel like being the contrarian here. Not because I necessarily agree with anything in this post, but because challenging the sci-fi genre in a class about sci-fi seems amusing.
Can we truly learn anything from Sci-fi? Science fiction is inherently, well, fiction. It’s a set of non-real events created to explore the ramifications of a specific idea the author had. However, the less immediate ramifications are often quite incomprehensible. There are a number of factors that an author could miss, making their story completely miss the mark. Sci-fi is prediction, not divination. Not only that, but it predicts the impact of technologies that don’t exist yet, meaning the entire work is based off the author’s assumptions of how the technology will work. Arguments depend on evidence, and the only real evidence sci-fi supplies is speculation. Therefore, any argument based on sci-fi is inherently invalid.
Now, occasionally sci-fi does get it right. You could compare sci-fi to the infinite monkey theorem. The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey given an infinite amount of time hitting keys on a typewriter at random will eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Applying this to sci-fi, if you make enough guesses at random you will eventually get one right.
Turning back to the question this thread is discussing, “what a thought-provoking or important lesson humanity could learn from science fiction?”, I’d offer a question in response: Can we truly learn anything from semi-random predictions, made largely without evidence?
Now again, I don’t actually agree with the view I just proposed. I think sci-fi can teach us things… but devil’s advocate is an important part of the argumentative process. (Also, playing devil’s advocate is fun.)
Does regulation actually stop innovation? That’s an assumption that this entire “choice” is based on, but personally I don’t think that premise is a valid one. Regulation ensures safe innovation to be sure, but I see no reason that innovation and regulation must be inherently at odds.
If an innovation is safe, worst case scenario is that (logical) regulation adds a bit of testing time to ensure it’s safety. Innovation is not hindered.
If an innovation is unsafe, regulation ensures that it will be made safe before it’s release. Without regulation, an unsafe innovation is released to the public and people get hurt; And then the innovation is either made safe or abandoned. Regulation just makes sure that last bit happens *before* people get hurt, not after. Innovation is not hindered.
Now, I made the caveat of logical regulation Allow me to clarify: Regulation exists to protect people. If a regulation is not protecting people, then that regulation has no purpose and is therefore illogical. Connecting to Jean-Paul’s post, in his example the self-driving car statistically causes less accidents than human drivers. Banning that car would therefore not protect anyone, and as such that regulation is inherently illogical. What is logical however, is putting that autonomous driver software through testing to ensure that it is as statistically safe as human drivers or safer. The alternative is the possibility of a whole lot of needless accidents with no benefit other than showing that the software is unsafe.
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