Science fiction helps us see

Here are posts discussing works of science fiction as history, reporting current events, or prophecy (showing alternate paths of our future). Enjoy and profit from these. Post your comments. This does not include simple movie reviews, just those that raise larger issues.

About Science Fiction

1. Sources of inspiration for America’s renewal.
2. Why we have not gone into space, & why we will. — Insights from Heinlein, Pournelle, and Clarke.
3. How does The Hunger Games compare to other classic stories of children fighting children? — Star Trek and Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky.
4. Why don’t our dreams of a better world inspire us to act? — Visions of a better world in science fiction.
5. Looking at technological singularities in our past & future. — sci fi from the Cro-Magnon era.
6. Robots are the solution to our problems, if we enslave them.
7. Will we enslave robots? If so, prepare for their inevitable revolt.
8. Our future will be Jupiter Ascending, unless we make it Star Trek?
9. 50 years of warnings about the new industrial revolution. It’s here. Ignore the naysayers. — James Blish warned us long ago. Plus some Star Trek.
10. So many of our hit films show dystopias. This shows how we’ve changed.
11. The horrifying list of inspirational films about humanity building a better future.
12. How science fiction shows us the limits of science.

Star Trek

1. Will the Taliban Give us a Taste of Armageddon? — More insights from Star Trek.
2. Let’s look at ourselves in the mirror created by the conflict with Iran — More from “A Taste of Armageddon.”
3. Our future will be Jupiter Ascending, unless we make it Star Trek?
4. The neocons captured the Star Trek universe, as they’ve captured America.
5. Star Trek reboots to give us simple stories, the cartoons we like.

Robert Heinlein

1. Are our wars driving us mad? — Insights from Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.
2. The 1% won a counter-revolution while we played. We forgot that we are America’s crew, not passengers. — Insights from Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky.
3. Debunking the myth: “An armed society is a polite society” — Libertarians take Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress too seriously.
4. We are living in the crazy years AND Fahrenheit 451 — From Heinlein’s future history stories, published as The Past through Tomorrow.
5. We like superheroes because we’re weak. Let’s use other myths to become strong. — About the Space Patrol in Heinlein’s Space Cadet.
6. Are our film heroes leading us to the future, or signaling despair? — More about Heinlein’s Space Patrol.
7. Did Robert Heinlein in 1961 predict the fall of the Soviet Union? Lessons learned from this. — Debunking a myth about Heinlein.

Isaac Asimov

1. The Iraq War as a warning for America — The Foundation series.
2. The hidden key to understanding Europe’s crisis – and ours — The Foundation series.

E. E. Smith’s Lensmen

• Liberal reflections on the causes of the Republicans’ defeat at the polls.

Jerry Pournell and S. M. Sterling — their future history

• Too many “takers”? Look to science fiction for the hard-Right answer!

David Drake

• Let’s look at ourselves in the mirror created by the conflict with Iran — From “With the sword he must be slain.”

Orson Scott Card

1. Generals read Ender’s Game and see their vision of the future Marine Corps.
2. Ender’s Game: Playing at Shock and Awe. — About the film.
3. Ender’s Game is a horror movie, showing us our dark side. No worries; we’ll forget faster than we eat the popcorn. — More about the film.
4. The little-known dark side of Ender’s Game – about the book and the film.

David Gerrold

• Fix “the button” so that a president can’t wreck the world — A warning from David Gerrold in A Matter for Men, Book 1 of The War Against the Chtorr.

Star Wars

1. A philosopher reviews The Phantom Menace, a great film with hidden depths.
2. The Force Awakens is a film for Boomers. It’s about us.
3. The Last Jedi is a finely manufactured product!
4. : The Last Jedi is a metaphor for passing the torch between screw-up Boomers and the Millennials.
5. The Last Jedi: a Leninist uprising against Tyranny!
6. See “Solo”, a Star Wars film that says much about America.
7. “Rise of Skywalker” – I saw it so that you won’t have to.
8. “Skywalker” is the “Transformers” for our time – Review of Transformers 4.

Kage Baker

• How do our leaders see us? Don the shoes of the 1%. Look down on the 99%. Describe the view. – From The House of the Stag

Other films

• Robocop is not a good role model for the youth of Detroit.
• Interstellar’s Quantum Love and Other Cosmic Horses#*t.
• Review of The Matrix: why there is no spoon.
• A philosopher explains Arrival and Stranger in a Strange Land.
• Films show us how smart machines will reshape the world. — I, Robot and Colossus – The Forbin Project.
• Blade Runner 2049: see the world through Hollywood eyes.
• Passengers – see it because the critics hate it.