Exploring Anti-Science Tropes In Science Fiction
With a name like science fiction, it sure is strange that most stories in the genre depict the efforts of mankind to understand and improve the natural world as the heart of evil. Why does so much of the medium depict humanity's natural urge to invent as the downfall of all things?
Name any theoretical scientific advancement that an author could imagine coming into existence and sci-fi will find a way to use it for evil. Often the heroes learn the truth of their fictional world, that being that mankind was better before we had all the cool stuff that allowed the species to survive.
The Mad Scientist Sci-Fi Trope In The Modern Day
A common go-to term for people who are against the advancement of technology is «Luddite». The term comes from Ned Ludd, a man who destroyed a pair of knitting machines out of concern for the workers that would be replaced. The Luddites took his message to heart, rebelling against the Industrial Revolution to save their livelihoods. The enemy of the Luddites wasn't technology. It was the greedy business owners who, in the pursuit of maximum profit, cruelly abandoned human workers for machinery. The tale of John Henry, the Steel-Driving man who beat the big steam engine, depicts a similar story and embodies the same frustration.
The 1921 Czech play Rossum's Universal Robots by Karel Čapek tells the story from the perspective of the owner, who replaces his workforce with humanoid machines. He explains in detail that the best worker is the one who needs the least. His relationship with the people who make his business run is purely adversarial, every dime they make is money out of his pocket, and he's more than happy to say so aloud. The play is most notable for coining the word «robot», from the old
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