The Next Ten Billion Years

[ecosophia]

A reader of mine, Kevin Wohlmut, has appeared as guest host of Michael Garfield's "Future Fossils" podcast, giving an online reading of two closely related pieces of speculative writing -- "The Next Ten Billion Years" by Ugo Bardi and my respose to it, also titled "The Next Ten Billion Years." It makes for a neat comparison between two visions of deep time, one shackled to the mythology of progress, the other free of that particular delusion. Check it out here. 

Comments

Some stories

[packshaud]

Besides the ones mentioned in the post, I read these stories too (all three fueled my nightmares for many years):

Evolution (2003), by Stephen Baxter
Man after Man: An Anthropology of the Future (1990) by Dougal Dixon
Till A’the Seas (1935), by H.P. Lovecraft and R.H. Barlow.

The first one can be described as Homo sapiens being humanity's peak, then things... keep going. You might find it tolerable.
The second one is sort of rooted in progress, but, uh... Again, nightmares. Also acceptable, and you might know it; if not, I'm afraid the book has become too expensive; libraries might help.
And the last one is possibly very well known by the readers.

Details on the plots can be found below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_After_Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_A%E2%80%99the_Seas

Re: Some stories

[ecosophia]

You can read "Till A' The Seas" online here -- a good harrowing end-of-humanity tale. I'm also very fond of Dougal Dixon's After Man: A Biology of the Future.

New term that applies to one of these, SolarPunk

[chaosadventurer]

Came across a new term/movement that appears adjacent to your fiction, SolarPunk. Though it more applies to Mr Bardi's work, yours does dance on the grimy/gritty end of it.
Now the real question is if that movement will result in people doing something useful or just give them another away to avoid doing the real things that need being done.
https://solarpunks.net/

Of course I had to reread both "The Next Ten Billion Years" and will fit listening to them into my schedule. now for me to get back to work.

Re: New term that applies to one of these, SolarPunk

[ecosophia]

I've seen a few references to it from time to time; what solarpunk I've seen is too techy for my taste, but your mileage may vary, of course. If my writings were to launch a subgenre of science fiction, I hope it would be called Druidpunk.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm so glad Ugo Bardi's "Good" scenario won't come to pass!

[ecosophia]

So am I. "Oh, the horrors -- the universe will get to do what it wants!"

[(Anonymous)]

The really weird part is that the universe knows what it's doing so much better than we do, so I can't figure out why so many people want to take over....

[ecosophia]

You'd think!

[(Anonymous)]

I suppose the fact we're hitting resource limits now is a good thing: it's saving us from an even worse alternative....

[ecosophia]

Bingo. Imagine a three-year-old behind the wheel of a really big truck, who somehow manages to get it to start. Fortunately, before it gets to really dangerous speeds, it runs out of gas. Whew!

[(Anonymous)]

I think we're closer to a 13 year old: we know enough to know this can end badly, but we still want to do it.

[avalterra]

Did they ask permission from you to do this?

[ecosophia]

Yes -- Ugo and I both gave permission.

[(Anonymous)]

There's something about progress that gets mostly ignored by the Progress Myth, and consequently, when people throw out that particular bathwater, out goes the baby as well. I mean, let's take a look at the period of 1850-2000. It included such wonders as Long Depression, WW1, Great Depression, WW2 and Cold War, and those are just the big ones. If I started listing regional catastrophes, or smaller issues such as social unrest or technologies that took their sweet time before starting to pay off (or never did at all), I'd have to write a book.

So. Progress isn't a smooth and comfortable rise upwards, but an extremely bumpy ride that frequently ends with people face first in the dirt. Even at the best of times, there are winners and losers. The good thing is that a crisis or a few won't necessarily stop the ascent. The unfortunate side is that there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that 21th century will be any more comfortable, and even if humanity in 2100 is starting to take serious looks at stars, West may well be in the middle of its Century of Humiliation. China went through one, despite its once apparent invincibility.

Or, things might crash and burn. Progress isn't written into the structure of universe, while decay and imperfection arguably are. Also, Star Trek style fantasies are best enjoyed as fiction. Utopias aren't a thing in real life, and since our current space travel is best compared to paddling a fallen log along the coastline, for a very long time realistic space ships wouldn't be like safe luxury yachts, but rather like pathetic little caravels battered with storms and scurvy. "Fully automated luxury space gay communism", my ***.

[ecosophia]

Ah, but quite a few people believe that progress really is hardwired into the structure of the universe. To them, progress is as omnipotent as it is beneficent, and all those bumps and troubles and vast heaps of corpses don't matter because we're goin' to the STARZZZ!!!!!. Try to tell them otherwise and you get the same thousand-mile stare you'd get from trying to talk sense to members of any other cult.

inevitable progress

[ritaer]

And, as in zombie flicks, survivalist fiction and other fantasies, no one ever seems to think that they will be zombie meat (or have to 'double tapped'out of their monstrous existence by the hero) or a red shirt ensign, among the first victims of the Venusian Plague, or, less glamorous perhaps, the man staring at his business ledger and his revolver contemplating suicide because the latest bit of "progress" has driven his business into the ground. Nope, in the brave new future everyone is going to be the hero.

Re: inevitable progress

[ecosophia]

I blame mass media entertainment for this. Novels very often take the point of view of the little person, or the failure, or the one whose mistakes bring about his doom. Movies and TV? Not so much.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, you posted once that there would be a graphic novel about "The Next Ten Billion Years". Do you have any information about that project?

Booklover

[ecosophia]

Last I heard it's still in process.

Re-education?!?

[(Anonymous)]

So, John… Why do people promoting vision similar to Bardi’s “good” scenario frequently mention the use of force in its implementation? In the 100 years from now bit lies this little gem on fossil fuels: “No such fuels are extracted any longer and doing so is considered a crime punishable with re-education.” Is this part of the flight to the fringes, a credible threat, the angst caused by an upcoming date with reality… or something worse? Rusty

Re: Re-education?!?

[ecosophia]

It's hardwired into that way of thinking. Since the whole point of Bardi's vision is to force the universe into doing what we want it to do, rather than letting it do what it wants to do, and other human beings are after all part of the universe...