[HN Gopher] The Life of Octavia Butler ___________________________________________________________________ The Life of Octavia Butler Author : prismatic Score : 80 points Date : 2022-11-25 22:33 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.vulture.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.vulture.com) | holmesworcester wrote: | One of the big tragedies of this moment politically is that so | many progressives who love Butler novels like "Parable of the | Sower"--or who would love them if they had read them--think that | the urgent drive to establish human civilization among the stars | is just a vanity project for rich white men or, worse, a | billionaires' conspiracy to escape the earth. | | Butler saw the push to the stars as something that could give | humans a common purpose and save us from the terminal infighting | that happens when we lack one. | | It's too bad she isn't alive now to set people straight. | phlarbough wrote: | Gil-Scott Heron probably said it better, but until people's | basic needs are met, I think space exploration has the opposite | effect, making people feel disenfranchised rather than united. | rospaya wrote: | Exactly. I'm sure I argued the opposite at some point, but as | time goes on Musk, Bezos and others look more like petulant | bored rich people, and not explorers or role models of any | kind. To most people it's "whitey on the moon". | maxbond wrote: | I really doubt Butler would be in favor of these particular | people pursuing space for these particular goals. Something | tells me that a leftist black woman would see Musk, who holds | antifeminist views, who seems like he wants to personally rule | mars, who's wealth literally originates from apartheid, and | who's power comes from deep pockets and not from creating a | movement of dedicated survivors who achieve power through | collective action, as the wrong person to be involved in space | exploration. | [deleted] | jtr1 wrote: | That's why I wish she was here: to articulate an alternative | view | morelisp wrote: | You may enjoy Becky Chambers's _To Be Taught, if Fortunate_ | and Ruthanna Emrys 's _A Half-Built Garden_. Neither is | very Butlerian in its writing but they 's taking aim at the | same question of how we may do space colonization without | space colonialism. | dnissley wrote: | Politics makes strange bedfellows! We live in a strange | enough timeline that it wouldn't surprise me if she was in | support of "these people". It would certainly be a choice | that would provoke and make people think hard about what it | is they truly value. | maxbond wrote: | Are you speculating that based on familiarity with her work | or general principles about how things may work? Given what | you say about the timeline being strange, and how that | seems to be what motivates this speculation, I suspect | maybe you haven't had a great deal of exposure to her, and | so this conversation about her views on space travel might | give you a skewed impression of how important to her space | travel was? And therefore, how likely she'd be to make | profound compromises for those views? | dnissley wrote: | No familiarity -- just my observation of artists and | authors being particularly inscrutable people. | willis936 wrote: | The motivations are secondary to our capabilities. | | The truth is we're not ready to set up shop on a more hostile | planet. We'd need to be able to spend 10x the resources our | current total society can afford to properly seed a Mars | colony. Any actual attempts made this century will lead to | horrific failure. I can't imagine future generations will have | a good taste in their mouth about colonizing Mars when they | remember what happened to the first colony. | | Colonizing Mars an important avenue for the continuing legacy | of intelligent life in the universe. It must be taken | seriously. Such half-assed attempts that are being discussed by | Musk and NASA today only reduce the prospects of humans | surviving past Earth. We need to become masters of Earth before | we could ever hope to take on a bigger challenge. | musicale wrote: | > We need to become masters of Earth before we could ever | hope to take on a bigger challenge | | Wasn't the same argument made against going to the moon? | willis936 wrote: | Notice we have no moon colony. | | Visiting is trivial compared to independently thriving. | sverona wrote: | > Butler saw the push to the stars as something that could give | humans a common purpose and save us from the terminal | infighting that happens when we lack one. | | This will only happen _after_ we do something about capitalism, | if we ever do. | saiya-jin wrote: | You mean inventing something better, ie some AI mix? Because | anything else mankind tried so far was a disaster and | suffering of much bigger proportions. | elliekelly wrote: | Some portion of that suffering was thanks to capitalist | ideologues who actively worked to undermine the success of | alternative systems. We don't really know how well other | systems work in the modern world because we haven't really | given any of them a fair shake. | pieix wrote: | A successful system is robust to tampering from external | and internal actors. | liamN wrote: | by that logic, US democracy and capitalism arent | successful either (see Russian election tampering and | OPEC influence on US/global economy) | pieix wrote: | And yet, the US and capitalism are both still around, and | their continued existence ensures we don't get people in | comments sections claiming that we don't know how | capitalism works as a system because _real_ capitalism | still hasn't been tried. | stevenwoo wrote: | This kind of does happen in the part of the Parable series of | books, at least the two that she finished, one can see the | outline of what the heroine starts. It's one of the more | hopeful dystopian future apocalypse books I've read, and a | lot of bad stuff happens to get to that point. Xenogenesis | gets there a totally different way. | ceejayoz wrote: | I'm pretty sure she'd have strong opinions about folks like | Musk owning and controlling the means for that push. | photochemsyn wrote: | From the article: _" The Oankali tell Lilith humanity is | doomed because of "two incompatible characteristics": | intelligence and a hierarchical nature."_ | | That perspective points more towards perceived problems with | _anyone_ owning and controlling any large organization for | any reason, doesn 't it? It's basically 'power corrupts and | the more power any single individual has, the more corrupted | they become.' | | Now, can you run large organizations with focused goals in | what we'd call a democratic manner? Maybe a kind of multi- | level (i.e. hierarchical) democracy, because why would you | want someone with six months of experience having the same | decision-making power as someone with six years of | experience? Similarly, why would you want people not directly | involved with the work (absentee owners and shareholders) | making decisions about what kind of decisions the | organization should make (i.e. which spaceship design is the | best)? | | It's entirely possible that humans have yet to invent the | optimal organizational structure for coordinated efforts | towards goals like establishing a viable human ecosystem on | Mars, etc. Science fiction is of course an arena where such | concepts can be speculated about, that's part of its value. | tomrod wrote: | Perhaps Musk is the necessary evil to point out it is | possible to push us to the stars, despite his many flaws. | maxbond wrote: | I think it's a safer bet that Butler would assert that | there is a unity between means and ends (which is to say, | that the means you employ define the ends it is possible to | reach, eg, an evil approach will only yield evil results) | then it would be to bet that Butler was an "ends justify | the means" type. | dnissley wrote: | What makes you think she would assert that? | maxbond wrote: | I'm fairly sure she was an anarchist, but not positive. | This is a principle in anarchist thought. | | If not, she would certainly sympathize with anarchism, | based on her views I do know, which is why I qualified it | as "more likely" rather than being certain. | dnissley wrote: | Having run in anarchist circles when I was younger, it's | strange to hear people talk of anarchism as a consistent | set of ideas when the reason it holds such a special | place in my heart is that there were so many different | conceptions of it, many of them incompatible with each | other. Which conception are you referring to here? | Presumably not anarcho-capitalism. | maxbond wrote: | It's my understanding that means-ends unity is central to | the critique of state power and broadly shared by | anarchists. Anarcho-capitalists reject basically | everything in anarchism except anti-statism, so you can't | really compare them to other flavors in a sensible way | most of the time, and I regard the name anarcho- | capitalists as a misnomer and I call them libertarians or | anti-state capitalists or what have you (though I respect | their right to label themselves as they please). I don't | know that anarcho-capitalists reject means-ends unity as | much as they have different ends in mind. | | Anarchism may not be a single set of ideas but it's | certainly a distinct lineage that descends from certain | critiques of capitalism, hierarchy/state power, and | Marxism (means-ends unity being essential to the critique | of Marxism, eg, that a proletarian state will become | oppressive for the same reason any other state becomes | oppressive). | | For instance, it's broadly held by anarchists that a | society should be voluntary and not based on coercion. If | someone called themselves an anarchist but was, say, in | favor of aggressive policing, I'd wonder what the heck | they meant by "anarchist". | [deleted] | tomrod wrote: | Stephen Baxter has a similar thread in a lot of his writing. A | unifying purpose makes us one tribe. Basing it on a scientific | target means we avoid most of the headaches and cruft that | other cultural transcription and binding agents suffer. | | Why not target intelligence surviving the heat death of the | universe? | maxbond wrote: | Personally I think COVID disproved this hypothesis. The part | of the movie where the aliens land and attack us all, | regardless of identity, did happen. The unifying did not. | | I think we have to find a way to peacefully and productively | coexist as a multiplicity of tribes. | tomrod wrote: | COVID showed that it occurs when we are a politically | fragmented society with sprawling wealth inequality. | | COVID didn't break us. It showed us were our weak points | are. | | We _choose_ what unifies us. | maxbond wrote: | Hmm, that is interesting, but I think about this like, | the failure to make the vaccine open source or generally | available, the polarization around masks and every COVID | measure, and how we are still not rallying around | existential problems like climate. | | But perhaps this is a United States bias on my part? | vkou wrote: | If progressives not getting behind capitalists and autocrats | building their own personal fiefdoms on Mars is the big tragedy | of the moment, I'm not entirely sure what a small tragedy would | be. A stubbed toe? A temporary shortage of Don Perignon? | [deleted] | jonstewart wrote: | I lived in Pasadena for a couple years. The public library on | Walnut St is a fantastic public space, a great place for a reader | to grow up. | selimthegrim wrote: | It is closed due to structural issues for the time being I | believe. The smaller Hill Av branch is also good. | dang wrote: | Related: | | _Parable of the Butler: A science-fiction pioneer finds | posthumous fame_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26055878 | - Feb 2021 (16 comments) | | _When Science Fiction Becomes Real: Octavia E. Butler 's Legacy_ | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12629109 - Oct 2016 (8 | comments) | dagaci wrote: | This is a great overview of the book i read: "The Cost of | Evolution | Xenogenesis Trilogy" | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjrXHaDYb7w | NelsonMinar wrote: | For anyone new to Octavia Butler, she has a short list of novels | and basically all are good. The list sorted by popularity is a | good start: | https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/29535.Octavia_E_Butler | | Kindred is excellent and the most popular for good reason. But it | as much American history as it is sci-fi. Dawn is my favorite of | hers and very sci-fi. Parable of the Sower is also an excellent | place to start, more of a post-apocalyptic story. | layer8 wrote: | I second the recommendation of Dawn, or the Xenogenesis trilogy | in general. Couldn't really get into her other novels. | lanstin wrote: | Wow, I have long been a fan of Butler but this article was | fabulous. The Parable books were good, but the special thing | about Butler's writing is how each series is as different from | her other works as her work is different from all he rest of | science fiction. It is a rich rich source of interesting ideas | that expand your conceptual space. Xenogenesis, DNA traders save | the remnants of humanity; Patternist: psychic battles and | diseases that improve us at the cost of our humanity; Kindred, | the shocking intersection between slave times and now; Wild Seed, | life as someone that can shape shift and lives thousands of | years; Flesgling, a weirdly sexy albino vampire overturns the | vampire hierarchies; and so many short stories that leave you | going "whoa." | | So don't stop with the Parables, if you like expanding your | conceptual space. | janosett wrote: | I would add that if you want a quick intro to her writing style | and diversity, her short story collection "Bloodchild and Other | Stories" is great. | [deleted] | diffxx wrote: | > "Reagan is the tool of utterly self-interested, fatally | shortsighted men -- men who deem it a virtue to be indifferent to | human suffering," she wrote. "We will probably go on solving our | problems by borrowing from the future until we are forced by the | consequences of our own behavior to change." | | I can't help but long for the day when this quotation is out of | date. | [deleted] | [deleted] | Overtonwindow wrote: | https://archive.ph/OKZn8 For anyone who never reads vulture but | somehow reached their monthly limit (???) | abraxas wrote: | Her sudden death was a shock to me and to many sci-fi fans around | the world. I really hoped that Xenogenesis series would gain one | more volume. I think Octavia would have written it if not for her | untimely death. The last book seems to end too abruptly. Still | _well worth your time_ to read the whole series if you haven't | already. | lanstin wrote: | Wish I could read Xenogenesis for the first time again. | tonymet wrote: | I'm surprised the Parable series hasn't been made into a tv or | film series. any theories? | NelsonMinar wrote: | There's a movie coming: https://shadowandact.com/a24-sets- | octavia-butlers-parable-of... | | There's a bunch of Octavia Butler adaptations now, | surprisingly. Kindred, Wild Seed, and Dawn are also being | developed for TV or film. | lanstin wrote: | I am looking forward to Wild Seed more than I looked forward | to LOTR. Altho with similar trepidation about being true to | author intent. I will watch Kindred but it will be hard to | watch, even the graphic novel I haven't finished. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-26 23:00 UTC)