I am behind on checking my feeds so I just now got around to reading this. I rarely read posts this long all the way through, but this one kept my interest until the end. Kudos!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080505/lf_afp/usreligionpovertyenergyoil

Thank god that we can finally do something about gas prices.

DSB: I freely admit my evidence for this is purely anecdotal. Still, having read a fair amount of both fantasy and sci-fi, it seems to me that more often than not, fantasy tends to be optimistic in its outlook for the future, while most of the sci-fi I've read is relentlessly dystopian and grim.

I don't think JSMN had an unhappy ending. It was a little bittersweet, but it wasn't tragic, and I thought it was hopeful.

Also, Ebon, I got so wrapped up in responding to others' comments that I neglected to compliment you on another well-written and inspiring post. It's heartening to see the clear-eyed, thick-skinned optimism of one who knows there's hard work ahead and is willing to go through with it. So many people stake their hopes on magic bullets, whether it's technology, religion, money, or whatever; they seem to think, "This one thing will make it all work out." When it doesn't, it seems that their next step is, "Oh, I guess there is no magic bullet... time to abandon all hope!" That's short-sighted, naive, and (as you said) cowardly.

(I'm not trying to start an argument, for once. Just curious.)

@Jim: Vinge is one of my favourites. Well worth a look.

@Ebon: Reynolds and Banks are both UK-based so may have a lower profile over there. If you can find them though I think you'd probably enjoy them. Banks' new one "Matter" hasn't been out very long so might be easier to find. Its ending is certainly towards the bleak end of the spectrum.

You mentioned _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Have you read _A Deepness in the Sky_? It's set in the same fictional universe, but in our general part of the galaxy in which FTL & AI don't work. This essay http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/longnow/ gives some of his thinking that led to the background of the story.

Two suggestions.

First, laws and ethics are two different things. Right and wrong have no necessary relationship to legal or illegal, unless we the people demand otherwise and back that demand up.

Second, I suggest you read up a bit; Ebon's "The Roots of Morality" series is a good place to start.

When I made the conscious decision to wash my hands of politics after the lies of the ‘Swift Boat’ campaign, I did so with the conviction, which I still hold, that the government is of the rich and powerful, by the rich and powerful, and for the rich and powerful. I do not consider this pessimism but I do consider it a pretty good observation of the facts.

With all due respect, this is an example of the Prisoner's Dilemma-type thinking I wrote about in my post. I acknowledge our political institutions are far from perfect. But they're still democratic, and because democratic systems are an excellent tool for self-correction, there's still a possibility of improving them. But how do you think things will ever change if you and others like you, who recognize the flaws of the system, opt out of participation and leave these decisions in the hands of hardcore partisans and the uninformed?

When Ellen Johnson advised American atheists not to vote this November, I said that this was terrible advice: for us to opt out of the system just concentrates the political power of those who choose to stay behind. The same argument applies here. If you're cynical about politics, as I grant you have every right to be, then you shouldn't abstain, you should vote. That's the best way to dilute the power of people who would use the system to advance bad ends.

(Also, specifically with regard to the Swift Boat campaign, I have to point out that your response is very much the one which the makers of that campaign were counting on. The religious-right smear machine is quite happy to get ordinary people so disgusted with politics that they drop out of the system altogether. Again, when decent people opt out, that leaves behind their hardcore partisan followers, who will happily and mindlessly vote in a bloc for whoever they're told to. It's part of the Karl Rovian "50%+1" electoral strategy.)

As Lynet pointed out, the saving grace of this mess is that despair and pessimism are contagious, but hope is contagious as well. There will always be those who despair - but, again, I have hope that there are enough people who care and are willing to work for us to accomplish great things. In that respect, comments like yunshui's more than justify all the effort I spent writing this post. :) Of course, I don't expect to change anyone's mind overnight. But some sparks just need a little coaxing to kindle back into flame.

I'm opening the floor to other suggestions, if anyone has them. :)

In general, I read more fantasy than sci-fi. Part of it is just the way my tastes run, I'm sure. But - to get back to the topic of this thread - something I've noticed quite often is that fantasy tends to be more optimistic. There are a lot of fantasy novels that have unambiguously happy endings, whereas in sci-fi, the endings tend to be pessimistic or at best mixed. Pretty much every book I listed above is an example of that. (A notable exception is Arthur C. Clarke, whose recommendation in an above comment I strongly second. 2001 and its sequels stand out in my memory as being some of the most prominent humanist works in the field of sci-fi I know about.) Assuming this is a real phenomenon, I wonder why it should be that way and what that says about us.