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KSR_2312
February 6, 2018
March 20, 2018
Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312" (2012)
At Charles Stross's blog the subject of world-building
in Science Fiction came up, and a martin089 brought up
the book 2312:
"What do people make of Kim Stanley Robinsons
worldbuilding? I struggled to understand the
economy in 2312, allthough it is explained
somewhat - I got the feeling KSR himself was
fuzzy on that: It's described as mostly
planned economies off earth, with capitalism
a somewhat marginal, dangerous hobby for
some. Ok, how exactly is that meant to work?
With no separation of producer and means of
production, what is this capitalism?"
The "world-building" underlying 2312 has big problems.
Global warming has led to rising sea levels and resource
shortage wars. We're shown a New York City that's adapted
and become a new Venice. Most of Florida is under water
now-- work has just begun on trying to build it up again.
Displaced refugees are still a problem.
But after only 70 years of these troubles, the human race
moved out into space, building *space elevators*, no less.
Seriously?
Then after developing some impressive space industrial capabilities
they *don't* use this technology to reverse the effects of global
warming: builing a sun shield at the L1 point would be an obvious
thing to do, and KSR definitely knows about that idea-- there's one
in use on Venus as part of a terraforming effort.
He attempts to cover this in a few ways, but none are convincing:
o many people like the present state of the earth,
e.g. they find the new canals of Manhatten very
charming. The phrase "fortunate flood" is supposed
to be a cliche (?).
o they're supposed to be very gun shy about terraforming
Earth after some early screw-ups that created a little Such things
ice age. are certainly
a risk, e.g.
from blowing
sulfides into
the upper
atmosphere.
No one sane
wants to try
these things--
but we're
on that track.
Nothing else
is being done
fast enough.
Multiple things in Robinson's 2312
scenario are hard to believe:
o An elaborate space transit infrastructure
involving space elevators and O'Neill-style RIDE_A_COMET
habitats that get used as transportation
(somehow)--
o The town of Terminator on Mercury that
supposedly coasts along on steel rails,
powered entirely by thermal expansion...
o The landscape of equatorial Mercury which
is somehow rough and craggy despite the I should read up on current
incessant sun-blasting it receives... thinking on this, though...
(But then, at least there's no damn artificial gravity,
or for that matter faster-than-light travel.)
Economics in 2312:
For some time now Kim Stanley Robinson
has been working on some ideas based ANARCHIC_ROBINSON
on a (perhaps idealized) view of the
social process of science.
He makes the point that scientists are
motivated far more by peer-group
approval if not out-right selfless That profit-motive is presumed by
altruism rather than the profit-motive. our libertarian friends to be the
only way to get anything done, but
KSR points to Science as a
counter-example.
In the 2312 timeline:
(I have the feeling that the 2312
The settlement of Mars was one of timeline is not quite the same as
the early forays into space, and the "Green Mars", but I could be
it was handled on a model much wrong: it's roughly similar.)
like scientific bases on
Antarctica-- this set the tone
for much of what was done in
space afterwards.
Now there's an alliance of many
(but not all) of the settlements
called the Mondragon Accord that
does not use market-based
resource allocation, but instead
uses some sort of computer-AI to Yes: let's put the economy under the
do the job... control of a google/facebook
algorithm... what could go wrong?
We don't see too much of how this
actually works... no one seems to By the way: in the real world,
worry about the cost of anything, back in the early 70s, there was a
and in general there seems to be a hot shot in Operations Research
presumption that at any time our named Straford Beer who had a
heroes can appropriate something scheme to use networked computers
if it's needed for the greater to coordinate the economic
good (though they mention they'll production of Allende's Chile...
have to replace it later)...
PLATFORM_FOR_CHANGE
But then our heroes are definitely
insiders, if not celebrities and
their lives don't seem to be
representative of how other people
might live. And actually, fairly
often they get things done with
conspiratorial wheeler-dealing in
a casual sort of way...
In 2312, KSR uses a device that I
more-or-less like of including The show-don't-tell doctrine is
interludes of excerpts from various very popular and "The door
"non-fiction" works of future history dialated" is supposed to be the
bees-knees, but I still think
But there's a certain lack of there's something to be said for
verisimilitude in KSR's story-telling the direct approach: just tell the
that might be improved. He skips over reader what you want them to know.
too much...
TELL_ME_TRUE
For example at one point, I was left
feeling "Okay, but now there's going
to be a long, drawn-out fight... oh,
maybe the bad guy's just gave up and
ran?" But then a few chapters later
there's a mention of a civil war that
started at that point, which is
something that you'd think would be on
people's minds a little.
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