Science Fiction

Unspoken

By Nicole Quinn 2 years ago

Censorship is just another way to prevent free speech, a right that is clearly and proudly stated within the First Amendment. People claim that what political preferences call opinion is ‘hate speech’ or, in other words, offensive. This obviously does happen. People can and do use that right with the wrong idea in mind, but getting kicked off of Facebook over political opinion is completely and utterly wrong on a number of levels. Censorship, to most, seems like the responsible thing to do. “It’s to keep inappropriate images and comments off of children’s websites!” Which is fine. But that’s only where it begins. In the end, everyone is too caught up in sparing everyone else’s feelings to realize they’re handing away the precious gift that brave men and women died to uphold and protect. It’s a gift that countries like China do not have, and look where they are now. (If I were in China, I would be killed in a back alley for saying this.) It’s a gift that a few hundred years ago was worth getting publicly executed for. It’s a gift that we have begun to take for granted, and that needs to end. Censorship is a shortcut to destroying our constitutional rights, and we’re letting it slip through our fingers. So, in summary, censorship is ill-advised, unjust, and dangerous to the people of America.

Tuned To a Dead Channel: How The Climate Crisis can Revitalise Cyberpunk

By Grant Price 2 years ago

In this nonfiction essay, the author argues that the climate crisis is the number one issue of our time. It overshadows every decision we make as individuals and as a society, and has forced many of us to ask, “What is the point in trying/living/building a future?” Many of us have severed our connection to nature so thoroughly and become so reliant on technology that we’ve forgotten what it means to be part of a greater ecosystem which doesn’t exist solely to prop up our existing way of life; only now are we slowly starting to wake up to this again. However, outside of a few movies and novels, the subject has yet to be tackled in any great depth in the world of fiction. In this piece, the author argues that the cyberpunk genre can be retooled to confront our fears surrounding global heating and revitalise itself in the process.