Usbek & Rica – What if science fiction reached the limits of its practice?

Sign of the times, the topic of “limits” on everyone’s lips. after one The disturbing new publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change In 2022, one summer and the month of October Historically hotthe first limit that comes to mind is that imposed by the planet on the colossal human development.

Anthropocene (others prefer to talk about it capitallocene) Collide Limits to growth (in a finite world)by address Famous report of the Club of Rome Written by the Meadows Husbands in 1972. Although unheard of for its time, this seminal document and introduction to ecology judged the imperatives of the transformations that must be brought about in our societies to avoid facing the wall around 2030.

Is it the fault of the supposed “human nature” or the violent lack of questioning of our societies that have so little ability to mutate? For Yannick Gomez, a researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology, guest on Utopiales, the inability of our societies to withstand is partly due to their lack of imagination: We are in an economic system that sorely lacks imagination: production, consumption, and disposal are our only horizons. And this resonates with the imagination that reproduces this form ad nauseam. »

It is enough to inspire many science fiction stories about mass blindness and the potential efforts that should be made (or not made) to avoid the worst. Because in science fiction, the limit is first and foremost what we take full force, when disaster punishes humans for their lack of foresight, or in the manner of mythical stories, Arrogance gobbling up Here we are Green Sun (Richard Fleischer) sons of man (Alfonso Cuaron) or Mad Max (George Miller), collectively relegated to survival situations, forced to devour each other to survive in a bloodless world with nothing left to offer.

Pride

in Post-apocalypticPopular genre of science fictionArrogance Humanity is often the cause of its misfortunes. Like Icarus, whose waxy wings melt from getting too close to the sun, the sorcerer’s apprentice Geological engineering (Transit), domestication of biology (blade runner) or nuclear energy (break) paid dearly for their dreams of cuts.