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What's your Sci-Fi unpopular opinion? (kbin.social)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Anomandaris@kbin.social to c/scifi@kbin.social
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It's a slightly click-baity title, but as we're still generating more content for our magazines, this one included, why not?

My Sci-fi unpopular opinion is that 2001: A Space Odyssey is nothing but pretentious, LSD fueled nonsense. I've tried watching it multiple times and each time I have absolutely no patience for the pointless little scenes which contain little to no depth or meaningful plot, all coalescing towards that 15 minute "journey" through space and series of hallucinations or whatever that are supposed to be deep, shake you to your foundations, and make you re-think the whole human condition.

But it doesn't. Because it's just pretentious, LSD fueled nonsense. Planet of the Apes was released in the same year and is, on every level, a better Sci-fi movie. It offers mystery, a consistent and engaging plot, relatable characters you actually care about, and asks a lot more questions about the world and our place in it.

It insists upon itself, Lois.

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[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

My big dislike of the Three Body Problem is somewhat meta. The Fermi Paradox solution that it presents, the Dark Forest hypothesis, only "works" in the books because the author made up a bunch of magic technologies and just-so scenarios to make it work. But ever since then /r/Fermiparadox has been overrun with "what about the Dark Forest??" shower thoughts.

I guess it's not so much a problem I have with the Three Body Problem as it is a problem I have with humanity in general.

[-] MudMan@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

Arguably it doesn't work in-universe, either, as proven by the fact that... well, it literally doesn't work, the dark forest is plenty bright by the time it all gets wrapped up.

From a western perspective the idea that the entire planet would successfully suppress a Dune-style disapora because "either we all make it or none of us does" also seems absurd, but it's not just a humanity prerequisite for the plot, it's a universal prerequisite for the dark forest, at least if the technology rollout is somewhat plausible.

Also, see above my point about Star Trek under the Prime Directive technically being a dark forest. Which is a funny meme, but also makes just as much sense as the TBP solution.

But hey, it's fun to think about for a minute and not that much wonkier than the Foundation or Dune takes on the same scale of problems. Except perhaps the slightly harder sci-fi approach making people take it more seriously than it deserves.

this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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