Science fiction is fighting a doctrinal war. Between those who believe that humankind’s future is still the stars, and those – like Kim Stanley Robinson – who believe interstellar travel is a fantasy of religious belief. The science is clear, travel to other stars may well be forever beyond us. So why do we keep telling this story?
Subscribe to the podcast in Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/science-fiction/id1530666687
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/303cZ10vZ7kX2zrdnGqXxV
Audible & Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/37a93ee5-a10e-4389-8613-b815c2bd8a6a
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=644462
Podcast player of your choice with the direct RSS feed (Copy and Paste) : https://damiengwalter.com/category/podcast/feed/
Join the Science Fiction community on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324897304599197
Listen here:
Watch on YouTube:
Damien Walter 
No one will ever sail west and arrive at the East! It is but a fantasy, unrelated to objective reality!
LikeLike
You’re confused. In the past the superstitious fantasists were against progress. Now you believe it will deliver your fantasy.
LikeLike
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/sticks-and-string/
LikeLike
I don’t believe myself or my colleagues to be ‘superstitious fantasists’. I think we’re well informed of the realities.
Let me also say, I met Kim Stanley Robinson. We were at a signing together, at Balticon in 2016. He’s a good guy, and though he may have strong opinions, I don’t remember him being flippant or dismissive of other people’s views.
LikeLike
Nobody ever does believe themselves to be the fantasist. But that’s what interstellar travel is. A religious fantasy that serves all the social and psychological needs power fantasies always serve. You’re not being dismissed you’re just hearing something you don’t like.
LikeLike
So, what it will take is a fascist theocracy coming up with huge works-projects, moving people off-planet, mining and occupying asteroids… Religious groups will set off in their asteroid ships on hundreds’-years journeys to nearby stars with possibly inhabitable planets. .
LikeLike
No religion survives more than a few centuries. Religious zealots might set off on this missions, but with travel times seven thousand years minimum to any star with planets, they would never get there.
LikeLike
You sound like a very intolerant person.
LikeLike
This is a very cheap and common place rhetorical tactic. Not agreeing with your fantasy does not make others intolerant.
LikeLike
😂 Christianity is 2,000 years old and going strong.
LikeLike
You won’t find a century when Christians haven’t killed other Christians over doctrinal disagreements. Now play that scenario for 70 centuries in an enclosed space.
LikeLike