Voyage From Yesteryear
by James P. Hogan · first published 1982
78% recommend22% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Science fiction about a post-scarcity society seeded on a new world and its clash with the old society; readers enjoy its economic ideas, the humorous adjustment of new arrivals, and its vision of robots and people.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
OH NO! HUMANS FROM EARTH! Late in the 21st century nuclear war once again loomed on the horizon. And this time there would be no escape. But an American probe has discovered a second life-bearing planet waiting with open biosphere for refugees from Earth; so that freedom, and the human race itself, shall not perish from the universe, the Americans launch a crash project to colonize Chiron. There's only one problem: the science and engineering of the time are not up to the task of transporting living humans between star systems. The answer: send a "colony" of frozen sperm and ova, and use
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You're welcome. One optimistic-ish sci-fi book I've re-read several times when I need a lift is "Voyage from Yesteryear" by James P. Hogan from around 1982: https://web.archive.org/web/20120713225646/http://www.jamesp... "The fun begins when a generation ship housing a population of thousands arrives to "reclaim" the colony…
on “The FBI is secretly using Sabre as a global travel surveillance tool” ↗…novelette "Manna" as a fictionalization of wealth concentration and total surveillance from automation and an social alternative. https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 See James P. Hogan's 1982 sci-fi novel "Voyage from Yesteryear" for an inspiring vision of alternative. https://web.archive.org/web/20120713225646/http://www.jamesp... Or Theodore Sturgeons's 1956 "The Skills of Xanadu" about the two-sided coin of freedom/subservience…
on “Killing Robots and Just War Theory” ↗…Taylor (who Freeman Dyson put me in touch with) -- as well as talking to many other people and reading widely on this and related issues (both non-fiction and also insightful fiction, like James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear). My thoughts on this are summarized in an essay I wrote in 2010 on my website "Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism". Essentially, political controls will likely ultimately fail in the…
on “Killing Robots and Just War Theory” ↗Not serious theory, but James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear is based on the creation of a new post-scarcity anarchist society, and the meeting between it and the "old society". Spoiler: it's not all hugs and singing Kumbaya. It's certainly a compelling vision…
on “Wild Ideas” ↗James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear is another SciFi work where a post-scarcity economy figures prominently, including some funny scenes with new arrivals who take a while to adjust.…
on “The Star Trek Economy” ↗…others, but Red Mars is excellent, and better than Culture, in my opinion (though the latter varies in quality). For another vision of a futuristic post-scarcity anarchist adhocracy, see James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear, which features less "magical" AI and is more of a reflection on cultural conditioning.
on “VW 'Dieselgate' software developed at Audi in 1999: report” ↗See James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear. It involves a post-scarcity civilization seeded in much the way you suggest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
on “Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star” ↗Voyage from Yesteryear (1982), James P. Hogan is my favorite. Essentially, yes, the robots can do better once shown but people create because it's enjoyable and, where desired, robots produce copies or maintain. The robots…
on “100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over (2013)” ↗…always my intent -- especially having read so much sci-fi like Isaac Asimov robot stories, "The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon, and also James P. Hogan's "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" and also his "Voyage from Yesteryear" -- that way more positives than negatives would come out of the abundance that robotics, AI, and other automation (including information technology) can provide. A related video parable I made on such…
on “Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans” ↗…replied, “Then we’ve got to take to the streets in a different way. We’ve got to shut down this country.”" For a science-fiction version of a general strike and related resistance, see James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear" novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear "The story was republished in other Eastern European countries where its depiction of nonviolent resistance against authority proved popular.…
on “NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy” ↗Have you, perchance, read "Voyage From Yesteryear"? The "economy" described is rather interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
on “Ask HN: What project would you work on if you had half a year of free time?” ↗I think you might enjoy this Sci Fi novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
on “Fertility 'breakthrough' as human eggs grown in lab for first time” ↗…it was informed by talking to Marvin Minsky at the MIT AI lab): http://www.jamesphogan.com/biblio/novels.php Most of his sci-fi is from the late 1970s through the early 2000s. I especially like his Voyage From Yesteryear from 1982: http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=sum... "The fun begins when a generation ship housing a population of thousands arrives to "reclaim" the colony on behalf of the repressive,…
on “Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?” ↗In Voyage from Yesteryear, the author (James P. Hogan) describes a post-scarcity society. Quote from a summary of the book: Since the availability of power from fusion reactors and cheap automated labor has enabled them to develop…
on “Martin Ford Asks: Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse?” ↗James Hogan describes a similar vision in Voyage from Yesteryear: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/849484.Voyage_from_Yeste... .
on “Rhetoric around the blockchain hints at problems with techno-utopian ideologies” ↗