science fiction – Duck of Minerva

“The UN v. Skynet?” An ISA Teaser

As the gods of the International Studies Association have seen fit to place my panel at 8:15 on a Saturday morning, I decided to advertise my talk in the blogosphere in hopes of drumming up some attendees. Below please see the teaser trailer for my working paper this year, which explores the impact of science fiction on global policy making in the area of autonomous weapons.

The paper itself is not yet ready for distribution (research is still in progress), but I should be able to circulate later this year and feedback at the panel will help me refine my conceptual framework – so if you are interested in these matters please come join us in the Richmond Room at the Toronto Hilton this Saturday! The panel, organized by UBC’s Chris Tenove, is entitled “Representation Across Borders”: Richard Price is chairing and other speakers include Wendy Wong, Sirin Duygulu and Hans-Peter Schmitz. Panel abstract is below the fold.

Friday Nerd Blogging: Galactica (Not) Actual and the Sci-Fi / Sci-Fact / Globalization Intertext

2013-08-30 / Charli Carpenter / 1 Comment

The Chinese state media could perhaps be forgiven for mistaking fictional Battlestar Galactica blueprints for future US fleet schematics this week, given this. Continue reading

Favela Ninjas and Apartheid Samurai

2013-08-13 / Vikash Yadav / 0 Comments

Neill Blomkamp’s “Elysium” packs a punch for an action sci-fi film even if its punches don’t land.

So yeah … Jodie Foster doesn’t give her best performance and the other roles for women in the film are completely lame. A beefy Matt Damon, bless his heart, is poorly cast. The core plot line doesn’t make much sense. Look, let’s face it, there is just no way Blomkamp can match the brilliance of his earlier hit, “District 9.”

Nevertheless, this film plays well with a range of contemporary possibilities/anxieties in the Global North: post-human bodies, surveillance drones, biometrics, the carceral archipelago, the securitization of migration, mega-favelas/globalized Gaza, privatized militaries, socialized medicine, the hierarchy of tongues, etc.

The film reminds us that globalization is as much about the construction of borders as their elimination. It shows just how uncomfortable we are with liberal ideas in practice. And it forces us to think about the reality of structural violence in our daily lives.

So how could this film have been better? Continue reading

Beyond Robopocalypticism

2013-08-09 / Charli Carpenter / 5 Comments

In all the media frenzy over “killer robots,” Terminator imagery comes up a lot. So do references to Battlestar Galactica. So does a specific scene from Robocop, soon to be remade to resonate with public fears of domestic drones.

These iconic narratives invoke a recurrent theme in American science fiction about lethal robot malfunctions or uprisings against their human creators. So prevalent is this theme in anti-killer-robot media coverage that some have argued concern over autonomous weapons is a product of science fiction itself: Hollywood is apparently to blame for priming the public with an unfounded fear of killer machines. For example Joshua Foust writes:

“Why is there such concern? Part of the reason, arguably, is cultural. American science fiction, in particular, has made clear that autonomous robot are deadly. From the Terminator franchise, the original and the remake of Battlestar Galactica, to the Matrix trilogy, the clear thrust of popular science fiction is that making machines functional without human input will be the downfall of humanity. It is under this sci-fi ‘understanding’ of technology that some object to autonomous weaponry.”

There are several reasons why this sort of argument doesn’t make sense, but one of the most important is that it overstates the case about robopocalypticism in American “killer robot” science fiction. In fact, co-existing with the imagery of killer robots run amok is a broad range of far more benign killer robot imagery that no one seems to mind or even think about when worrying over autonomous weapons. Here are five great examples of killer robots filmmakers and TV producers definitely want you to want on your side in a pinch. [BSG SPOILER ALERT] Continue reading

Outside of Context: Iain M. Banks, 1954-2013

2013-06-10 / Patrick Thaddeus Jackson / 12 Comments

Yesterday the world lost one of its great contemporary literary lights. Iain M. Banks, named “one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945” by The Times in 2008, died of gall bladder cancer that had only been diagnosed this February. He finished his last novel — ironically, it’s a story about the final weeks of a man dying of cancer — very recently, and it’s due to be published before the end of the month. From all reports, he passed peacefully, having spent as much of his last months as possible spending time with his wife and close friends.

Arguments for a New STAR TREK Series

2013-02-19 / Daniel Nexon / 11 Comments

Because “53 reasons” is just plain stupid, and increments of five are basically listicles, I provide three.

1. We are heading straight for maximum Star Wars saturation. Despite its ham-handed didacticism, Star Trek‘s values are far preferable to those of Star Wars. We cannot allow aristocratic fantasy to bury republican virtue.

2. JJ Abrams is a pretty good action director, but he doesn’t seem to understand the intellectual possibilities of science fiction. At its best, Star Trek has been one of the few non-cable programs to explore those possibilities. And it has almost invariably done so better within the format of episodic television than that of the “major motion picture.”

3. Onward toward the 25th Century! By the third season of The Next Generation, it was pretty clear that the political communities of Star Trek — including the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire — are themselves important “characters” in the franchise. We’ve seen the Federation evolve –and not always for the best — in light of the Borg and Dominion threats; we’ve learned just how much its status as a “post-scarcity society” rests on maintaining a Terra-centric utopia within a much harsher galaxy. We’ve watched the Klingon Empire repeatedly fail to reconcile the theory and practice of honor. Cardassia has broken our hearts time and time again.

Hydrogen Sonata Forum wrap-up

2012-12-23 / Patrick Thaddeus Jackson / 0 Comments

Just to collect all the links from our Forum on Iain M. Banks’ The Hydrogen Sonata into one coherent place: