Anti-technological sf
I'm sometimes surprised by how often sf stories are all about the evils of technology, and how much better unmodified humans are than technologically aided humans.
I shouldn't be surprised by this. Sf that's about the dangers of science goes back to Frankenstein, or arguably Prometheus. And even in classic pulp sf, there was often a streak of belief in the supremacy of the human soul over cold sterile machines. It's not that I really think that science fiction should be or has always been primarily focused on how cool technology is.
But at some gut level I'm nonetheless still a little surprised each time I come across yet another story in which (for example) the future is a soulless world of machines, but one child encounters an ancient low-tech thing known as a "book" that imparts wisdom beyond the ken of the cold rationalist future world. Or a story in which an unmodified human beats a cyborg at sports or smarts.
I wrote a satirical little short-short showing what this concept might have been like if it had been written in the past:
It was the far future year 1990, and everyone was using the remarkable new devices that aided vision, devices known in the vernacular of the day as "glasses."
Everyone, that is, except little Timmy.
Little Timmy knew that using artificial devices of cold unfeeling metal and glass to aid sight was only another form of blindness. He understood that true vision came from the heart, not from the eyes. And so he refused to wear the "glasses."
And even though the cold harsh unfeeling world mocked him for it, the day came when everyone's "glasses" went on the fritz, and the only person in the world who could see was Little Timmy, who had not become dependent upon technology.
And thus dawned a new era, an era in which people set aside their "glasses" and learned from the one who could see without them. An era of Vision.
. . . I wrote this entry about three weeks ago, but put it on hold 'cause it kind of got away from me; it ran aground on an attempt to discuss the story (and songs, etc) of John Henry. (See also The Legend of John Henry.) I originally wrote:
He was a steel-drivin' man, and they set the steam drill against him, but he was pure of heart and he beat that steam drill in a fair fight, proving once again the supremacy of man over machine.
At least until the Terminators show up.
(...And then there's Wallace Peters.)
But in most versions of the John Henry song that I've encountered, he dies in the end. ("He laid down his hammer and he died" is a line in some versions; also "He died with his hammer in hand.") So the song is not an unambivalent statement about human capabilities being inherently superior to machines. In fact, I sorta think it exhibits some of the tensions between the ideals of progress and a healthy skepticism toward the effects of new technology that some sf manages.
Anyway, all of that is beside my original point, which is that there's a lot of sf that goes way beyond ambivalence and healthy skepticism into the realm of deep-seated technophobia. And it's not that there's no room in sf for technophobia; it just surprises me sometimes to see it there.
This entry is still flawed, and relies on all sorts of probably false assumptions and ideas about science fiction, but I'm gonna post it anyway. No doubt if it had been written by an AI, it would've been better.