long-term scientific progression (highly variable advancement creates a strong incentive for interplanetary first-strikes to deter competition), the innate hostility of extraterrestrials laid out with a rational basis and leading to Dark Forest Theory, and the views on space-time as a finite resource whose consumption defines modern physics and drives intergalactic competition
are all relatively novel, well laid-out, and presented as a kind-of sociological challenge to the reader.
He's not painting a Utopian view of the universe. But neither is he writing everything off as a forgone conclusion. The end of the final book alludes to the possibility of better worlds to come.
There's a sense that it doesn't have to be this way. And there are definitely ideologues who argue to the contrary and who struggle to pursue a better world even in the face of a grim logical truism. I don't know if I'd call it an issue of ideological soundness so much as a pessimistic outlook on current human behaviors extrapolated outward onto an intergalactic stage.
The outlooks on
spoiler
long-term scientific progression (highly variable advancement creates a strong incentive for interplanetary first-strikes to deter competition), the innate hostility of extraterrestrials laid out with a rational basis and leading to Dark Forest Theory, and the views on space-time as a finite resource whose consumption defines modern physics and drives intergalactic competition
are all relatively novel, well laid-out, and presented as a kind-of sociological challenge to the reader.
He's not painting a Utopian view of the universe. But neither is he writing everything off as a forgone conclusion. The end of the final book alludes to the possibility of better worlds to come.
There's a sense that it doesn't have to be this way. And there are definitely ideologues who argue to the contrary and who struggle to pursue a better world even in the face of a grim logical truism. I don't know if I'd call it an issue of ideological soundness so much as a pessimistic outlook on current human behaviors extrapolated outward onto an intergalactic stage.