On poorly articulated philosophy: Schismatrix, by Bruce Sterling

 I need a science fiction break.  Unfortunately, the book I just read was not particularly good, but at least I can grumble without any real anger.  So away we go.  Schismatrix, by Bruce Sterling.  Here's the basic premise.  In the future!!!  Sorry, future (it's that kind of book), Earth has been mostly left behind and quarantined.  Most of humanity is living on space stations 'n stuff.  There is a social division between those who are trying to create a future for humanity through genetics and bioengineering (the Shapers) and those who use cybernetics (the Mechanists).  The plot is basically a bunch of vignettes throughout the life of Abelard Lindsay.  He starts out as a rebellious "preservationist," interested in preserving old Earth cultural stuff, but he is basically a wandering opportunist who eventually leads a group to adapt their physiologies to live underneath the oceans of Europa.  'Cuz.

Recommended?  Not particularly.  Schismatrix has one truly brilliant sequence.  Lindsay starts life as a rich kid on a space station orbiting the moon, but winds up getting exiled to a shithole station, where he hooks up with some pirates.  The pirates are the best.  They originally came from a colony on an asteroid mine, with a constitution based on the US Constitution.  As the mining colony collapsed, they wound up reduced to nothing but a ship.  But... they kept their structure of government!  So, the leader isn't a "captain."  He's the President!  Second in command?  Speaker of the House!  (It isn't a very big ship, so there's no VP.)  There's a (small) House, a (small) Senate, a (small) Supreme Court... they argue about separation of powers!  It's great!  Lindsay gets dragged along when they appoint him Secretary of State.

And they don't steal.  They... annex.  With treaties, and the works!

If the book had been that consistently entertaining, I'd recommend it.  Alas, no.  I'll just point out that it had its moments.

So I'll gripe.  Without any real feeling, 'cuz yesterday... eh.

Shapers and Mechanists.  To his credit, Sterling uses the "show, don't tell" approach to explaining the Shapers and Mechanists.  Yet underlying the fact that there is a conflict is a philosophy.  Let's say there are two groups.  One is playing around with biotech.  Another is playing around with cybernetic implants.  Does it logically follow that they will go to war?  No.  Consider the genetic engineers.  Why should they care if someone is sticking mechanical implants in his body?  Particularly if it's somewhere in the asteroid belt, and I'm hangin' around Saturn?  Sure.  Plug metallic shit into your body.  Why the fuck should I care?  Unless we have philosophy... ideology at stake.

And if I'm some cybernetic engineer on an asteroid, playing with implants, why the fuck should I care if some yahoos around Saturn are doing genetics experiments?  Unless we have philosophy... ideology at stake.

You can have competition for resources, and territory.  Sure.  Long history of different groups competing for land and resources.  Stick Shapers and Mechanists in the same region of space, competing for resources, and it doesn't matter whether or not they are doing different things to extend their lives.  They'll fight.  They'll fight over whether to break the egg on the big end or the little end.

Yet this is written in such a way that there is a philosophy at stake.  This is about ideology.  Belief in the way to proceed for the future of humanity, or posthumanity as the book eventually discusses.

And resources really shouldn't be at stake.  There is more of a focus on Shapers, given Lindsay's connection to them, but one of Lindsay's vignettes is when the pirates get to an asteroid turned into a self-sustaining habitat by some Shapers, who arrived with basically nothing, but their tech is so good that they can create a self-sustaining habitat out of an asteroid from nothing.  So fighting over resources?  Really?  Not quite buyin' it.  The Shaper/Mechanist division is ideology.  Poorly articulated.

OK, granted a lot of readers don't want abstract arguments about philosophy, but I kinda do, particularly when the novel turns on it.  Why cybernetics and not biotech?  Why biotech and not cybernetics?  If they're fighting over those principles, rather than just space and resources, then elaborate!

Of course, I don't know if Sterling would have had an answer.  Yet I also don't know if the Shapers or the Mechanists would have had an answer.  And that itself is sort of a meta-commentary.  In other words, I'm overthinking this.  Big-Endians and Little-Endians.

One of the classic observations in political psychology is that few people can explain the philosophical underpinnings of liberalism or conservatism.  Converse (1964).  That doesn't mean we don't observe nasty internal conflicts.  And if I asked you to explain Adam Smith or Karl Marx?  Not very timely anymore, but I'm struggling for equivalent texts for 2021, but I think the point is made anyway.

The philosophies of the Shapers and Mechanists are not well articulated.  In some ways, that's a flaw.  It makes the book intellectually unsatisfying for a political scientist, but of course, few people read a science fiction novel from the perspective of political science.  Yet if there is an underlying ideological/philosophical conflict, I kinda want that drawn out.

Then again, people fight over stupid shit, and I'm kind of sick of that.  The interesting thing about having no tribe is that you can watch the tribes get crazier with some perspective.

Anyway, time for some music.  Yesterday's selection was somewhat unusual for 'round here.  Today, another surprise.  However, I actually do like Tool.  I'm a math nerd.  I'm required to like Tool.  Here's "Schism," from Lateralus.