[ SECRET POST #2911 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2911 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 045 secrets from Secret Submission Post #416.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 (same words, different image) - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[philippos42]

No, you're right. Near-future SF is full of apocalyptic pessimism and has been since the New Wave--in the 1960's.

Granted, that's about human society, or a teenager's idea of a parody of it. So it doesn't fit OP's desire for a work that takes Stephen Jay Gould's scientific non-teleological universe and marries it to H. P. Lovecraft's pessimism about a cosmos where the great and powerful forces care not at all for us.

Then again, the reason may be that in editors' eyes, a little nihilism goes a long way, and trying to come up with excuses for human self-regard and power fantasies gives more stories (and those are probably more commercial much of the time).

Hope is socially useful even if nihilism is actually true on a basic cosmic level.

Pessimism is useful in anticipating ways things can go wrong, but stopping at pessimism is ultimately socially counterproductive. SF editors probably are right to encourage the meme of facing a new challenge and trying to triumph over it; but this can go too far into woolly-headed optimism and triumphalism, which then undercuts the point by making optimism look unrealistic.

[sarillia]

You know, I just realized I'm actually complaining about something different from what OP is talking about. I'm used to seeing humanism at odds with pessimism about humanity--basically a celebration of the best of humanity versus a condemnation of the worst of it--so my mind went off in the wrong direction, but what OP is talking about is the universe's total apathy toward us which is something that I actually find interesting.