I meant to ask this in the Eyes of Amber entry

[james_davis_nicoll]

Why is so much SF concerned with resource extraction?

Comments

[catbear.livejournal.com]

That's the essence of all living things.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

Because nothing is more exciting than mining.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

So that sequels may be about inventory management.

As a guess...

[casaubon.livejournal.com]

Money is one of the traditional drivers of plot. And resource extraction as a source of wealth creation is more interesting than selling groceries.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

It's consistent with historical reasons for exploration, and provides a reason for conflict (or at least interaction with others). "NO KILL I"

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

'Cause resource intrusion is just so painful?

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Too much Warcraft.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Opportunities for large-scale heavy industry and cool technology, a ready-made excuse for war or social conflict, and the influence of the "minerals! helium-3!" justifications for space colonisation.

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

So much? How much of SF is about mining?

In any case, I have two related guesses:

1) The average author has no conception the abundance of elements in the universe or their economic value, as you've said about Universal Water Scarcity™.

2) Sketching out a collection of worlds which are inhabited solely because there are valuble rocks there is more plausiable than sketching out a collection of worlds which are inhabited because they are conveniently Earth-like (or worse, Edenic).

[andrewwheeler.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed it was due to the eternal mutant strains of goldbugism and libertoonianism that have plagued SF for a few generations -- only Real Stuff is actually valuable (not that yucky paper money), and only Real Men are worth reading about.

I may be focusing too much on "those plucky miners in the belt" stories, though.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

Frontier economies? Resource competition as plot driver? Humans responding more viscerally to tales of scarcity than tales of abundance?

[benveniste.livejournal.com]

Because economics is boring.

At the basis of all economics and politics is the concept of scarcity. Scarcity refers to the tension between our limited resources and our unlimited wants and needs.

It's possible to build a fine short story around the often brutal decisions required to rationally allocate limited resources. There have even been a few fine novels. But those have mainly focused around the politicians rather than the actual economics and politics.

But it's far easier to use the shortage, present or future, real or perceived as the MacGuffin to drive the plot than to keep people's interest in what would effectively be a 300-page writeup of budget hearings.

[j-larson.livejournal.com]

Resource extraction often occurs in areas far from large centers of population, where the intensity of law enforcement is correspondingly low. This allows for appealing liberties and brutal oppression that in more built-up areas would end thirty minutes later when the police showed up in force.

Remember, when the Imperial Marines arrive, the Party Is Over.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Because if people aren't hungry somehow, there's a lot less movement in any direction.

[summers-place.livejournal.com]

James,

Apropos of absolutely nothing (and certainly not this particular entry of yours), but you really ought to check out this entry on brown_betty's journal. Just because.

Geting there is less than half the fun

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

Because focusing on extraction lets you handwave as solved the challenges of getting to the resource and bringing it home? As several of us noted in an earlier thread on Frank Herbert's melange etc, if you've mastered the level of raw energy involved in interstellar travel (and chemistry, bioengineering etc. have progressed concomitantly) it's hard to imagine a material resource that couldn't be synthesized atom-by-atom more cheaply.