小说与文学2012antipope.org
科幻、宏大理念与意识形态：接下来该做什么？
Science Fiction, big ideas, ideology: what is to be done?
导读
这是科幻作家 Charles Stross 关于「科幻的大想法与意识形态」的随笔，评论区从不同角度回应：大想法需要开放的意识形态空间，科幻可分为「点子驱动」与「人性驱动」两类，而现实世界对技术变革的反应往往比小说家预期的更迟钝。对写作者来说，它提醒我们：设定是目的还是手段，决定了你该怎么写开头、怎么设计冲突。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
想写出真正的大想法，先给自己留出不被群体思维和自我审查挤压的思考空间，避免在旧框架里翻炒旧情节。
- 02
动笔前先想清楚设定是主角还是外壳：点子驱动型要让设定承担冲突，人性驱动型则应尽快交代设定、迅速进入故事核心。
- 03
现实对技术变革的反应通常比小说里迟钝得多，别默认世界会按你的逻辑剧烈反应，否则冲突会显得一厢情愿。
- 04
可以用一句话式前提快速把读者带进故事（「就假设动物会说话，有一天……」），把篇幅留给真正要写的东西。
HN 评论精选
大想法来自开放的意识形态空间，群体思维只会催生旧情节的翻版。
如果我们烧光煤炭和石油、破坏气候、背弃启蒙运动的意识形态价值，人类最可能的长期未来就是退回到旧石器时代晚期，而那种生活实在难受。这让我想到两件事：一是 Gene Roddenberry 认为进步会解决人类的问题；二是，如果你设想的工业最终会毁灭地球，你就很难再推演出让大多数人既愉快又有挑战性的未来场景。许多作家把自己关进了某种信念体系，只是在旧宇宙里翻炒旧情节，沿着旧路线走向陈词滥调的结局。大想法诞生于开阔的意识形态空间：群体思维越多，真正的戏剧性创新和由此产生的大想法就越少。启蒙运动源于个人自由与个人权力的理念，约翰·密尔甚至论证过，多数人觉得有害的东西长期看反而对物种有益——我们进步是因为最大化局部自由，而不是因为存在某种理性可以凭法令让物种变好。
DanielBMarkham查看英文原文
If only because when you stop moving you're dead, and reverting to a late palaeolithic lifestyle looks like it would be a drag, and that's the most likely alternative long-term future for our species if we burn all the coal and oil, wreck the climate, and turn our back on the Enlightenment's ideological values. I am reminded of two things. First, Gene Roddenberry's idea that progress would fix the problems the species had. Second, that if your vision of industry is such that it eventually destroys the planet, you're going to have a very difficult time projecting out some scenarios in which most folks would find both pleasing and challenging. There's your cri de coeur: many writers have boxed themselves into belief systems in which they are just rehashing old plots inside of old universes that progress along old lines towards cliched conclusions. Big ideas are born out of wide-open ideological spaces. The more we have groupthink, the less we're going to get real dramatic innovation and the big ideas that come from it. The Enlightenment was born out of the idea of individual freedom and power -- even to the point of "hurting" the world and society at large. John Stuart Mill made an extended argument along the lines that things the majority would find hurtful are actually good for the species in the long run. We progress because we maximize local freedom. Not because somehow reason exists to make the species better by fiat. Or to put it a little more colloquially, if your enlightenment is broken your fiction will be also. ADD: Want to restate this for clarity: we have standardized so many facets of our worldview and what is "good" or "bad" for both characters and society that we are destroying good fiction. The corporate dystopia of Alien in 1970 is so pervasive now that writers don't seem to be able to think of equally horrific possible futures. It's all becoming just so much pre-canned fantasy, because once you take away by dogma the possibility of tweaking your "what-ifs", you eliminate huge sections of possible great sci-fi. We're groupthinking ourselves into two genres: non-fiction and fantasy.
区分点子驱动与人性驱动的科幻：后者的设定只是快速交代的前提，重点在故事本身。
我觉得科幻有两个极端。Type-I 是作者努力构想出「大想法」并推演其后果，点子本身才是重点，比如《雪崩》。Type-II 里科幻只是外壳，用来暴露和探讨人性或某个深层哲学议题，比如《索拉里斯星》《使女的故事》或 James Tiptree Jr. 的小说（一定要读《Houston, Houston, Do You Read》）。第二类作品并不需要推销大想法或意识形态；对它们来说，科幻元素往往很快被交代过去，随即进入故事的核心——就像好的民间故事和寓言那样：「就假设动物会说话，有一天……」或者「外星人发明了一种信息素，让男性的性冲动变成无法控制的攻击行为，人类会怎样」。
Jun8查看英文原文
I think the two ends of the SF spectrum are: Type-I, where the author tries to come up with "big ideas" as described in the OP and their ramifications wherein the idea is the important part, e.g. Snow Crash; and Type-II, where the the SF part is just an artifice to expose and explore aspects of humanity or some deep philosophical issue, e.g. Solaris, The Handmaid's Tale or the stories of James Tiptree Jr. (you've got to read "Houston, Houston Do You Read"). Works of the second type don't really need to push big ideas or ideologies. In fact, for most of these, the SF element is something that will be quickly introduced and got over with to come to meat of the story, similar to how better folk tales and fables work: "Let's just assume that animals can talk, now one day ...", or "Aliens have invented a pheromone/toxin that turns sexual urges in males into uncontrollable physical aggression, this is what happens to humanity".
走在时代前面的写作者，往往要承受无人共鸣的孤独。
九十年代我在一次科幻大会上见过 Sterling，他在一间小酒店会议室里做问答。他回答问题时带着一种悲伤，让我心里冒出一个念头。此前我一直觉得「永远是房间里最聪明的人」很酷，但看着他回答那些显然无法点燃他想象力的问题，我突然想：天啊，如果永远是房间里最聪明的人，那该多可怕。我忽然很同情他。
waterlesscloud查看英文原文
"And there, over in a corner, is Bruce Sterling, blazing a lonely pioneering trail into the future. [...] He's currently about ten years ahead of the curve. " Some time in the 90s, I saw Sterling at a sci fi convention. He was doing a Q&A session in some small hotel conference room. As he was answering questions, he did so with a sadness that hit me hard with one thought. Up until that time, I'd thought it would be cool to always be the smartest person in the room. But watching him answer questions that obviously sparked no imagination in him, I suddenly thought, "My god, how truly terrible it would be to always be the smartest person in the room." I suddenly felt very sorry for him. Who knows what he was really thinking or how he actually felt, but it was a revelation for me in any case.
现实对技术变革的反应远比小说家设想的迟钝，写冲突时要考虑这种抵抗力。
Stross 几乎要面对的真正问题是：世界对科技变革的反应，并不像科幻作家和读者希望的那样。他引用的一段话很到位：我们生活在二十一世纪，杀人机器人无人机在阿富汗山区刺杀目标，我们的文明已被跨国公司这些蜂群智能入侵并征服，由 0.1% 的新贵族阶层指挥。他说得对，这些都很有科幻感，而且真的在发生。但他暗示却没明说的是：世界并没有按他期望的方式回应技术创新。这些事本都可以成为科幻故事的桥段，作者或许会断言「世界的命运」取决于阻止技术落入坏人之手，但现实表明，世界其实对超级反派、无能和失控技术相当有抵抗力。启蒙价值依然健在，只是我们有了更多实验数据，必须更努力才能想出既符合当前数据、又能激励下一代思考者、制造者和行动者的创新。
javajosh查看英文原文
The real problem Stross almost confronts is that the world doesn't react to scientific and technological change the way SF writers (and readers) want it to. There are a couple of choice quotes, but the best one (because it contains the seed of the answer): >"We're living in the frickin' 21st century. Killer robot drones are assassinating people in the hills of Afghanistan. Our civilisation has been invaded and conquered by the hive intelligences of multinational corporations, directed by the new aristocracy of the 0.1%..." He's right, all of that is very sci-fi and it's really happening. (And personally I think it goes deeper: agriculture changed the world far more than the iPad, contraception changed the world far more than Facebook or a Saturn V...). But the thing that he implies but doesn't mention is that the world isn't reacting in the way he wants to technological innovation. Any one of those things could have been tropes in an SF story, and the author might have asserted that "the fate of the world" depends on preventing technology from falling into the wrong hands...but real life shows that the world is actually pretty resistent to super villains, incompetence and rogue tech. The Enlightenment values are still alive and well, we just have a lot more experimental data and we have to work a lot harder to come up with innovations that both fit current data and inspire the next generation of thinkers, makers, and doers. One way to make such a solution easier is to forget about humanity as a whole, and focus on a narrower partition of people and inspire them. I'm not sure what a good partition is, but thats because I'm not a very good author. Another, harder solution (which Stross shows his skill at with the above quote) is to describe reality in a particularly evocative way. "Hive intelligences of multinational corporations" taking over our society is a rather more evocative (and dramatic) then gets talked about in the press.
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