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Does Science Fiction Build Mental Resiliency in Young Readers? (theconversation.com) 110

Posted by EditorDavid from the bigger-brains dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger writes: Science fiction and fantasy can help readers make sense of the world. Rather than limiting readers' capacity to deal with reality, exposure to outside-the-box creative stories may expand their ability to engage reality based on science according to an article by an assistant professor of English at Clark University.
"Let them read science fiction," the article concludes. "In it, young people can see themselves — coping, surviving and learning lessons — that may enable them to create their own strategies for resilience." But it'd be interesting to hear what Slashdot's readers think.

Do you think your mental resiliency is greater because of the science fiction you read when you were young?
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Does Science Fiction Build Mental Resiliency in Young Readers? More

Does Science Fiction Build Mental Resiliency in Young Readers?

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  • Science Fiction is *always* about current social commentary, the science bits are nice, but truly just fluff.

    right now Asimov's "Nightfall" should be required reading

    • Science Fiction is *always* about current social commentary, the science bits are nice, but truly just fluff.

      *Always* is a bit of a stretch, there are sci-fi out there that serves as nothing else than telling a cool story. But yes, sci-fi allows for a social commentary in a way not possible in some other genres and most of the best (IMHO) sci-fi *is* about the social commentary and the setting is just the backdrop where it is set. I love many of the stories by Robert A. Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin and Isaac Asimov. Up next on my reading list is Philip K. Dick if I can find them. Luckily for me I found a newly ope

      • Well, I'm talking about ScFi, not shlock...

        Try Stephanson's Seveneves for a good modern scifi

        Or anything by George RR Martin, his short story collections are incredible.

        Even GoT is about current social problems. It's an even better series if you read it as such.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          See, even though I think this is a pretty common element of good sci fi, I hate this take. Same as I hate it when people insist that sci fi and fantasy is "about escapism". Or any of a number of universal absolutes.

          It's not. Those are choices you can make. Unless you extend the definition of "current social commentary" to the point of vapidity (where all stories ever told ever are social commentary because all characterizations are compared to real people and archetypes), it is entirely possible to have

        • If it was more important to the author to convey their message than to tell a good story, then they fundamentally failed at their primary job. If there's a hint the story is about social problems, then the author is bordering on failure. If it's clearly apparent that they're writing about social problems, then they failed absolutely.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kqs ( 1038910 )

            Huh; I've read many good stories about social problems, and many terrible stories which had nothing to do with social problems. I'd say that "good story" and "about social problems" are completely orthogonal.

            Humans excel at creating social problems; I don't see why stories wouldn't be about that.

            • Fiction, and particularly science fiction, is a means to gain a diversion from the problems of the day, not to immerse oneself in them. If instead of providing me a useful diversion from societal problems the author forces me to think about them, then they have indeed utterly failed at their primary function.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by mvdwege ( 243851 )

                Spot the Puppy.

                Who's got shit-cleaning detail today?

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by kqs ( 1038910 )

                  Yeah, you're probably right.

                  Throughout history, stories were used to teach (about one's own tribe, about other lands, about history, values, skills, etc) as well as to entertain. I'm amazed that so many people who call themselves "conservative" (as in "preserving the way things have always been" (for some definition of "always")) want to redefine stories, redefine fiction to be only entertainment (and only the entertainment that they want). And also usually whine about freedom of speech, because irony is

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by kqs ( 1038910 )

                Some people want stories to turn their brains off. Some people want stories to expose them to concepts they've never considered, point out things in their lives that can be improved.

                I have nothing against brainless fun. I rather enjoy it. But you seem to want ALL fiction to be brainless fun. Why you do you think you can dictate what I enjoy? Why are you trying to limit the fiction I read? For centuries stories were as much teaching tools as entertainment, but you want to toss that in the trash.

                My prob

                • Fair point, read what you want, enjoy what you want, pay for what you want. My line of discussion should be taken in the context of this thread that started off with a declaration that all science fiction is about current social problems.

                  Sometimes message fiction is ok, but personally I consider it a different genre from science fiction.

          • if the author isn't trying to convey a Mesasge, hidden ynderneath their prose, they are a terrible artist.

            see Romance genre

            • No. If your hypothetical artist as author wants to convey their message, then they can pay me to read it, or at least provide it for free. If on the other hand I’m paying them, as I do when I buy a novel, then it’s up to me what makes it good or bad, not them. It’s like commissioning a painting to hang in your house: if you ordered a landscape and the artist delivers a portrait, they failed. And it doesn’t make them a terrible artist if they delivered a landscape as requested.

              • your looking for a contractor.,

                a cool artist would deliver a landscape, and his message.

                who knows though, I only got got art into the Smithsonian using a ball of string.

                but hey, pom poms./

                • You claim to be an artist, yet you also claim to be an authority on who is or isn't an artist.
                  No true artsy fartsy artist would go that route. They're full tilt "anything can be art".
                  And no true good artist would brag about getting postmodern shit into the Smithsonian.

                  • most artists are elitist insecyre snobs. just saying... I know a few.

                    art is something that makes you think or feel in the manner that the artist desires.

                    let's take a look at Christ-in-piss? Did it get you upset? Did you think it's obscene somehow?

                    More obscene than a statue covered in blood?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        As mentioned in my longer comment, Iain M Banks and Neal Stephenson. (Beware Banks without the M? I wonder if he might have been schizophrenic.) Also I've been enjoying some recent Chinese stuff, mostly translated by Ken Liu, though he writes some good stuff on his own, too. (My database currently has 691 entries for SF, going back over 40 years. (I noticed Keith Laumer as I scanned it. He did the Retief and Bolo stuff.))

        • I know this is blasphemy, but is there a non-phonetic version of Feersum Endjinn?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pjt33 ( 739471 )

          Ian Banks wasn't schizophrenic, and nor did he have split personality disorder. He was quite shrewd: in a world where sci-fi is looked down on by some, you might lose readers of your "serious" books if they buy one of your SF books by mistake. It's arguably more curious that Graham Greene didn't use a pseudonym for the works he termed "entertainments" in distinction from the "novels" that got him nominated for the Nobel.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            I suppose I spoke too strongly, but I feel like there is a certain kind of consistency in the Culture books, while his other books are much more diverse. I should limit that by noting I have read almost all of the Culture books and not so many of the others.

      • I don't think this is really about sci-fi at all. Any genres can have deep, complex, thought-provoking stories. The catch is that you need kids to want to read them. Sci-fi is just a more palatable vehicle than a lot of genres, A lot of the classic sci-fi may tend to be both more palatable as well as more thoughtful than other genres, but it doesn't mean exclusivity lies there.

        • Imagine a modern kid wanting to read old style Westerns, ha. I also remember when sailing pirates was big, neither would hold much interest today. Ray guns and Light sabers mean many of the old stories can be recycled, but they have to match modern expectations. Today, I can't stand watching a modern show where when an emergency happens no-one takes a cell phone to dial 911 or take a photo of the scene, Or even worse, the hero finds someone stab with a knife and pulls it out just before the police/witne

        • I don't think this is really about sci-fi at all. Any genres can have deep, complex, thought-provoking stories.

          Yes, but no-one claimed that other genres can't, just that sci-fi lends itself quite well. The reason sci-fi is such a good vehicle for social commentary is that the author can take something in our current social climate that the reader is familiar with and exaggerate it over the course of the fictive time, crafting a world where that phenomenon is magnified in a plausible way. You could do social commentaries in other genres also, off course, but many sci-fi stories are cleverly disguised as a cool story

      • I've read probably a dozen books by PKD - while most of them were good, my favorite by a good margin was A Scanner Darkly. The film is good as well. I feel it's the most "Dickian" of his books, the sort of "What's really real?" questions he asks get kicked into overdrive with a heavy psychological component as well. Parts of it are based on things he actually experienced among the counterculture burnouts, which I think accounts for the intensity. But it doesn't lose itself in religious hocus-pocus like some

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by spitzig ( 73300 )

          Haven't read A Scanner Darkly yet. VALIS is probably the weirdest thing I've ever read. Very "What's really real?". The main character is Horselover Fat, which is a Anglicization of Philip Dick from Greek. It's got confusion between the narrator and the author in the book. It's semi-autobiographical(YES, it's in the SF section). That's not all the weird stuff going on in it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          I've read about 8 books by Dick in the vague hopes of finding one that's actually well written and worth reading.

          His writing style does not gel with me at all in the slightest.

    • Maybe the authors that *you* read. Try Greg Egan, for instance.

      • Hell yes, one of the best Hard-SF writers out there. Difficult to read but very rewarding if you're patient.

        • Seconded. Some of his characters can be a little long winded when they speak of their work, but as a nerd I can definitely relate to that. Some seem to jump to conclusions a bit quick, and I sometimes wish that he explored the nitty gritty of how they made sure they were correct, but you get used to it - it's done in the name of efficiency and pacing, as are longer time skips, such as your kid characters now being grown up, or billions of years passing by. The stories are entirely idea-driven, often with e

      • I'll also.chip in a vote for Greg Egan. Permutation City was great.

  • Reading is good (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @04:01PM (#60068038) Journal
    In reading, your view expands proportionally to the depth of the author. Reading Asimov you learn how Asimov thought, but the same is true of reading Murakami or Stephen King, too.

    But who is saying we shouldn't read science fiction?

  • Sci-Fi Can Prepare You For The Present Future (Score:4, Insightful)

    by divide overflow ( 599608 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @04:04PM (#60068046)
    I completely credit reading sci-fi books in my youth for my mental preparation for the current COVID-19 pandemic. Having thought through what life would be like in a global pandemic and how I would manage to survive it steeled me to the realities we now experience.

    It's as if reading the book was the class assignment and I'm now living though the pop quiz.

    • Re:Sci-Fi Can Prepare You For The Present Future (Score:5, Funny)

      by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @04:07PM (#60068056)

      Same for me, except it was videogames, not books. And not science-fiction games, but the Leisure Suit Larry series.

      It taught me that social distancing is a good way to not catch viruses and that tall blondes in high heels are usually trouble.

    • Is that why people are acting like idiots over a slightly-worse-than-normal flu bug? You were expecting an apocalypse, so you latched on to the first thing that looked like it?

         

      • Fool. This is not flu, it's a different virus entirely. I didn't latch onto anything. The only apocalypse I was expecting was from the movie Idiocracy, and you have confirmed its arrival.

        Just go away and take your crappy attitude with you.

  • I read almost exclusively science fiction and fantasy until after graduating college. It was fun, there sometimes was interesting science, but mostly it was just good stories. For the most part, the "science" was a way to introduce magic without it being explicitly magic. More often than not, the actual science was pretty weak.

    I don't know for sure but suspect reading any fiction affects pre-adults in the same ways. They're all coming of age stories, quests, and social commentary. I don't see how having BEM

    • I don't see how having BEMs and exotic planets is that different from foreigners and exotic countries.

      I do.
      It's more difficult to imagine how the aliens from Rama series act and think, than imagine how the wise Chinese old man would act and think, for example. Or how you would experience a hot planet with high gravity versus the beaches of Argentina.
      With that being said, Karl May fired up my imagination just the same as Vernor Vinge - in terms of intensity, but very differently in terms of which area of my imagination was touched.

  • I'm quite sure any good fiction would have a similar benefit - hell, sometimes even reading a good text book gets me daydreaming. Anything to get me thinking of something I'm unaccustomed to.

  • Resiliency? How about flexibility or detachment? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @04:12PM (#60068062) Homepage Journal

    My initial reaction involves categorizing types of science fiction. I think of "hard" science fiction as being based on reality and on that grounds more educational. One category is basically short-term projections from present trends,and if the projections turn out to be accurate, then those kinds of science fiction stories would certainly help with flexibility. I guess examples would be stories that predicted smartphones or computers and the uses thereof?

    The resiliency-enhancing categories would more likely revolve around problems that actually get solved. The first example that came to mind was Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, but now I can't remember if it actually offered any solutions... I mostly remember it as a brilliantly multi-threaded story, but most of the details are gone (after more than 40 years).

    One mathematician I knew had the opinion that the best science fiction is firmly grounded in reality, but with one big twist of some sort. That might qualify as encouraging resiliency or problem solving skills. He introduced me to Banks and Stephenson, for which I'm grateful.

    Grand-scale SF... Now that's a tough one. Thinking of examples like Asimov's Foundation series. You young whippersnappers are probably thinking of movies these days? Whatever happened to that newfangled "Star Wars" thing? How far in the future is too far?

    Then we get to fantasy... I think it causes detachment from reality and on that basis I dislike it, notwithstanding that I've read lots and enjoyed some. The Harry Potter novels are a good recent example. I read and greatly enjoyed the first seven (though now I'm wondering why I haven't felt any interest in any of her later stuff). If it's pure fantasy, then I can enjoy it on that basis, but mixtures of fantasy and SF tend to annoy me.

    (Change of topic: Why is the Subject field excluded from the spelling check, at least in Firefox? Apparently it isn't recognized as a text entry field? Another ancient and unfixable bug in the Slashdot code? Or has something changed in Firefox?)

    • Grand-scale SF... Now that's a tough one. Thinking of examples like Asimov's Foundation series. You young whippersnappers are probably thinking of movies these days? Whatever happened to that newfangled "Star Wars" thing? How far in the future is too far?

      I've always thought of Stars Wars as happening in the past. We're simply the degenerated descendants of a formerly space-faring civilization. If there's any doubt, the opening text of every Star Wars movie says so itself: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away".

      Then we get to fantasy... I think it causes detachment from reality and on that basis I dislike it, notwithstanding that I've read lots and enjoyed some. The Harry Potter novels are a good recent example. I read and greatly enjoyed the first seven (though now I'm wondering why I haven't felt any interest in any of her later stuff).

      Harry Potter has lots of reference to contemporary culture, including British politics and class structure (which might not be obvious to American viewers) and the all-too-familiar experiences of youth, from bullying to first love to anti-establ

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Whatever happened to that newfangled "Star Wars" thing? How far in the future is too far?

      As the song says, "It's Not the Future".

      Even though it looks like it's the future
      It's really a long, long, time ago
      When there were knights
      And they got into fights
      Using sabers of light
      Please remember

  • {quote}Do you think your mental resiliency is greater because of the science fiction you read when you were young?{\quote}

    Yes, I do think so.

    The science fiction that I read, when I was young, was generally about problems and people who solved them.

    It might be tech or bio or psych or other things. But it was about problems and how to work together to fix things.

    And, the ideas in it gave me places to start when things were needed in my actual work. You are no doubt holding one in your hands right now... 8-)

  • ... certainly helped and helps me keep a relative cool in economic meltdowns, pandemics and global power shifts. That's what I like about Cyberpunk, it's way crazier and at the same time way less bullshit / dreamy than, lets say, Star Trek or something like that. I also like the way George Orwell and Aldous Huxley teach us about some basics of society and totalitarianism. The only quasi-science-fiction that's actually part of the official school curriculum here in Germany.

    By and large I would say that my in

  • Betteridge.

    • Depends. These questions "doing X improves Y" often depend on what X replaces.

      If you spend most of your time reading books then you will probably see more "improvement" by playing computer games or learning archery than reading yet another book.

      TFS asks if sci-fi has magic properties which is probably false. I don't think you get more "prepared" by reading Asimovs Foundation than Hellers Catch 22. Both *can* make you think more about society, humans etc but they don't have to. It really depends on the reade

  • Think this is probably a chicken or the egg kind of thing. Odd or marginalized people will be drawn to stories about odd or marginalized people succeeding. And people that like those stories will probably feel OK with just being themselves more often.

    • "Odd or marginalized people"
      Stories about perfect people who are successful at everything are boring, one-dimensional stories that go nowhere quickly. Flawed people are interesting.

      • Interesting people are interesting. Flaws have nothing to do with it.
        Hitler and Jesus will both be talked about for thousands of years to come.

  • However sci-fi also includes post apocalyptic prepper fantasy which is mostly wingnut conspiracy run wild, and uber libertarian "objectivist" fantasy like Cordwainer Smith and Terry goodkind who can spin a fine story but the resilient will hopefully recover from them in a couple of weeks much like the writings of Ayn Rand.

  • I mainly read at night before going to sleep, to clear my mind of the world and the day I just lived through, so my mind will shut off and be something like 'at peace', but that being said I've been reading science-fiction/fantasy and fantasy novels for, what, at least 35 to 40 years? In addition to enjoying 'science fantasy' TV shows and movies.
    I think what it's done, for me at least, is expanded the range of my thinking beyond just the confines of current reality, 'thinking outside the box' if you will,

  • Reading should span genres because you never know which story will speak to you, or when it will speak to you.

    And while great books transcend genre, teachers should try to avoid ghettoizing any genre. I'm reminded of David Silva, who said in an interview that his favorite book was 1984. When asked if there was a genre he avoided, he said, "I have never been drawn to science fiction or fantasy."

    Shrug.

    • Great literature that supposedly isn't genre fiction is itself a genre. I think Brandon Sanderson successfully defined it in "Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians," which was a little kidsy but eminently enjoyable, which is the whole point. Books in this genre are called "Librarian books." You'll know when you're reading a Librarian book. For example, you can't identify the quest that's central to the plot. Or, some message to the reader (social message, etc.) seemed to have been more important to the autho

  • I don't think this works (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @05:07PM (#60068186)

    People that have mental flexibility (i.e. the independent thinkers) will be in that class already when they are young. And many of them will read SF, because it allows them to experience different realities experimentally. There are lots of SF readers that are not independent thinkers though and that mistake it as a kind of techno-fantasy. To be fair, there is a lot of fantasy masking as SF these days, but there obviously is a reason for that.

    In the end, independent thinkers look for mechanisms and justifications and _why_ are things how they are. Others just look for the rules they need to follow and then either accept them or rebel against them, without ever seeking to find out how things work or what the reasoning behind the rules is (often bad, but sometimes really good). Current example: All the morons that think they can make the danger from a pandemic go away by just claiming that it is harmless or an invention of "the government". That is not what is at work at all, but these people truly believe what they say. They just see the rules about social distancing and things getting closed down. They are incapable of understanding that there is a hard, completely merciless set of rules to this thing and that those in power making these new rules just try their best to limit the damage from extreme down to manageable. (Of course, some of those in power are complete scum and use this as a nice opportunity to further their dream of having even more power and control. But that is a side-show.)

    Now, people that do not seek understanding for how things work are just like that. There is not fixing them. It is almost like the human race was a mix two different species with 15% (or so) independent thinkers and 85% others and there is no crossing over from the larger to the smaller group. You can, given sufficient repression and penalties make independent thinkers shut up though and lose a tremendous (if inconvenient in the short-term) asset that way.

    • ... are incapable of understanding ...

      They understand 40 years of 'evil government' and 20 years of 'science is wrong'. What little social cohesion the USA had, is being destroyed by this.

      ... with 15% (or so) independent thinkers and 85% others ...

      It's always been like that. The difference being the 21st century allows the 85% (and 1% sociopathic thinkers) to tell each other, they're the independent thinkers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        ... with 15% (or so) independent thinkers and 85% others ...

        It's always been like that. The difference being the 21st century allows the 85% (and 1% sociopathic thinkers) to tell each other, they're the independent thinkers.

        Indeed. People used to have some appreciation of their limitations forced on them by society. Not good, but the current state hardly seems much better.

  • it just produces people who think the work is "resiliency" instead of "resilience".

  • SciFi tends to be full of moral lessons (like some other fiction). It also tends to feature creative, intelligent characters who do ingenious things when they're in a pickle. This is dangerous for children

    Children need to know right from the start that their place is to be workers, and to consume products and services. Any attempt at creativity will be immediately crushed by their school masters and later by their superiors at work. Any display of intelligence will be met with ridicule by their superiors an

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gwills ( 3593013 )
      Honestly, despite the negative tone, I think your correct (or at least, more right than wrong) Children are trying to figure themselves out and understand how the world works. Highschool, and most parents, do their best to shield them from these realities, only for the kids to be tossed from the frying pan into the fire when they become adults "adults". Only to be victimized by the systems they are ignorant of. Some honest literature about society, and what's expected and what's actually possible, is GR

  • What about facts instead? Biographies, histories, engineering documentaries? Stories about military, scientists, engineers, etc. Woudn't those be more helpful than fiction? The problem with fiction is that it sets up false expectations in coincidences, karma, things like that. Yes, writers have tried to pivot from that .. but then there's other prices to pay as overcompensation. I'm not sure fiction is healthy, not any more than say religion. It can serve a purpose but I'm not sure we can say it is super im

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gwills ( 3593013 )

      ...I'm not sure fiction is healthy, not any more than say religion. It can serve a purpose but I'm not sure we can say it is super important. In fact religion might be more important than deliberate fiction.

      religion == deliberate fiction, my friend.

    • History?

      History is scrap books written by the victors. To get behind that façade, you need to go DEEP, and quite frankly most people don't want or will ever go deep in history.

      Scince Fiction goes Deep, but presents it in a plausibly deniable way.

      Look at ASmimov's Econometrics. Who could possibly believe that there is a foundation out there that is controlling world events to eventually provide for the better good, even if it isn't all that good right now.

      I mean, economics and psychology are weak scie

      • Look at ASmimov's Econometrics. Who could possibly believe that there is a foundation out there that is controlling world events to eventually provide for the better good, even if it isn't all that good right now.

        I mean, economics and psychology are weak sciences that could never be used to predict future conditions, right?

        Paul Krugman was an absolute believer in psychohistory; wrote that as a kid, he wanted to be Hari Seldon.

  • This is such silly crap theory that let me say this. IF this were true than ANY story could be said to have the same impact AND MORE. Perhaps murder mysteries? Or Westerns that are based in reality and actually are germane to life? Nah, People writing this shit are just children that will never grow up.

  • ...because MOST (not all) Science Fiction and Fantasy tends toward simplistic answers to complex issues.

    The last few years' hugo awards and their focus on promoting diversity over quality writing would suggest the opposite, in fact.

  • I was a nerd in school in the 1980s, and my friends and I gravitated to science fiction and fantasy in text, movie, and video game.

    I think Asimov, Heinlein, Orson Scott Card, (and others) did wonders exciting us about mathematics, science, & technology, and developing our philosophically thinking about the world. I am sure that we developed a sense of optimism and excitement that helped us get past whatever roadblocks or hurdles or frustrations would lay in our paths. Honestly, our excitement and enth

    • The book "Hold on to your kids" by Dr. Gordon Neufeld and Dr. Gabor Maté is ostensibly about parent-child relationships and their importance in maturation, but it helped me with understanding my own emotional maturation (much of which happened in my late 20s, which should've happened in my teens), my relationships, the importance of closeness and how to develop it. I don't know if it would've helped me in my teens, but if it existed then and my parents had read it, they probably could've helped q

      • what is really bother ing mE is that nooNe has mentioned the Heinlein corollary:

        As a science fictio aythor gets older, he ismore likely to write about sex, explicitly, and USuallly with ans alienss

        Please Note: Heinlein's first book was stranger in a strange land.

  • "Do you think your mental resiliency is greater because of the science fiction you read when you were young?"

    Yes, I do. I suspect that you'd need to read a lot of hard SF; Heinlein, Clarke, Pournelle, Niven, Asimov,and the like, rather than purely "soft" SF like Norton and McCaffery. And there have been a lot of actual scientists like Robert Forward and Carl Sagan who have written VERY "hard" SF novels.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      I find the subset of science fiction fans that continually bleat on about "hard" science fiction amusing.

      Star Trek isn't hard science fiction but has influenced and inspired a lot of the technology advancements we're enjoying now. Meanwhile its soft setting allowed an exploration of a different model of society and interesting characters engaging in a range of moral conundrums.

      That's just as valuable as Asimov's Three Laws and deriding it because the science isn't 'hard' is naively blind to what it does off

  • SciFi was my salvation (Score:3)

    by BobC ( 101861 ) on Saturday May 16, 2020 @07:21PM (#60068466)

    I wasn't much interested in Science Fiction as a kid. But when I started puberty in the mid-1960's in I also developed major depression (called "melancholia" or "moodiness" back then). I became less able to relate to those around me, as if there were some kind of mist or wall in the way.

    Science Fiction gave me a way to better understand people. The SciFi I read most took "normal" people and placed them in situations possible in no other forms of literature, fiction or non-fiction. For me, it was a course in "theoretically applied psychology". As I began to understand the interactions and behaviors of these characters in their bizarre and weird external environments, I began to better understand people from the perspective of my own weird inner world.

    In time, I became able to judge when the author made poor choices, as I came to better understand human behavior and motivations in general. This came as I tried to think of myself as a "Stranger in a Strange Land", rather than being defective or broken. It wasn't therapy, but it sure as hell was therapeutic.

    SciFi also kindled an interest in technology and science, and I became an engineer long before therapy finally started to work for me. When doing engineering, I'm able to enter "flow", a place of happiness and productivity that was there for me no matter how things otherwise sucked in my life.

    Perhaps that's coincidence, but it's a straight line for me. I'll always recommend giving SciFi a try!

    • stranger in a strange land???

      if you haven't connected that with the clear referne to exodus.

      find a priest... well, rabbi.

    • Playboy used to publish short Sci-Fi stories of the highest quality. They paid the authors well. The stories were eventually published as an omnibus (I have it). Great stuff!

      On topic: the short stories of Robert Shackely opened my mind like no other. Dune and the Foundation made me read history and philosophy. Samak made me realise the transient nature of everything (the City). And so much more, no time to mention everyone..

      At an early age I stared with the 19th century futurists, most notably Verne. I reme

  • Going by the evidence of nerds on Slashdot, no.

    The never want to learn anything new or look at things from a wide range of perspectives. They think they can deny facts and logic because being a "nerd" gives them a free pass on such things. A surprisingly high level of wishful thinking. A surprisingly low level of creative thought.
  • For me, it has opened up my mind to ideas beyond the "magical" realm between heaven and hell where everything is determine by a bunch of supernatural beings. Jurassic Park talks about evolution. Star Trek series talks about space travel etc.

  • Started with the early 50's SF in 9th grade & only dropped my Analog subscription a year ago (I'm 67).

  • It doesnâ(TM)t have to be SciFi. Fantasy or realistic settings also had the same effect for our kids.

    Any good fiction asks the reader to consider difficult problems and assess the solutions used by the characters.

  • Perhaps there are others- I've heard that Asimov is considered to be similar, but I always found his writing stilted and dreadful. RAH used hard sci-fi as the backdrop for and setup to his personal philosophies about government/military, personal responsibility, and problem solving.

    I don't agree with everything he said, of course, but boy did he give the reader a lot to think about. I still find myself thinking about Robert A when I hear some twit postulating about some issue knowing that they clearly ha

  • Being exposed to different ideas and viewpoints makes people realize that there's more than one way of thinking. Just as someone who travels a lot and interacts with many cultures is less likely to parrot racist ideas from people they knew growing up, tackling different science problems with different answers leads to looking at things from different angles and lessens the odds of thinking that your way is the only way.

    People exposed to more ideas early on will be more comfortable around foreign ideas.

  • For the longest time, most sci fi presented a hopeful view of the future...sure, there were dark moments, there was conflict...but in the end higher ideals won the day. This built an overall sense of hope for the future.

    New sci fi...new sci fi will drag kids down. Look at what they've done with Star Trek, once THE bastion of hope for our future turned into what amounts to Star Wars dressed in Star Trek clothing, not just completely undermining Gene Roddenberry's vision, but setting it aflame and urinating

  • It's bad because it tends to fill minds with BS. People writing Sci Fi? They're not physicists, chemists, hell into science much at all. It's mental masturbation. Some people actually believe it. Here's the recipe:
    Sci fi show. Need:
    1) Ship of some sort
    2) Hot chicks. Skimpy outfits even better.
    3) Leader of some sort. Look to those that can run a musical or play company.
    4) Come up with crazy crap. First on list - weapons. No weapons no show. We have to kick someone's ass somewhere. Then throw in other things.

  • The "academy" refuses to allow any science fiction or fantasy movie to win major awards. For example AVATAR was the largest-grossing and most successful movie of all time, yet they simply didn't permit it to win Movie of the Year (because they didn't want it to).
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  • on wether you consider asimov and clarke pop and van voght and such the real stuff maybe

  • I suspect that the kids who are drawn to read SF and fantasy are those already predisposed to "engage reality based on science". Science is the ability to imagine, coupled with the discipline and ability to test and/or attempt to create the things which one imagines. Speculative fiction would naturally attract children whose minds work that way.

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