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Why Humanity doesn't interest me in fantasy. (Rant)

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ascanius

Inkling
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold believed the same thing. How is this "rant" not politics I don't know, or dangerous for that matter. Opinion | Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?. I'm calling sojus bs I hope, the alternative is so much worse.

I'll play. Humans aren't the only terrible creatures though so it's hard to play along.

But considering the stipulations no race is worthy of existence for every living creature could be said to be distructive in ome manner
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I think the core of this discussion, which I'd formulate as "Why choose humans over fantasy races?", is interesting, but I don't believe tying this topic to an argument about whether or not humanity is loathsome is a productive way of going about discussing it. I suggest people interested in this question reframe it and start a separate thread for it. The way I see it, this thread is inevitably going to end up with a number of folk frustrated over matters that don't directly tie to writing.
 

Futhark

Inkling
In the OP’s defence, it is labelled a rant.

When I was young I thought humanity was a plague. I was going to be a Nihilist, but I didn’t have the energy, so I became an Apathist ;). Eventually I grew up and saw through the fear mongering and deliberate divisive politics. Sure corporate greed is bad (trying to own water now for crying out loud), and for every 2 steps humanity takes forward it seems we take 1 and a half backwards and one to the side. That said, there are redeeming qualities in humans, it’s just hard sometimes to see the trees when the forest appears so dark and gloomy.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Agreed, Futhark. Here's my counter-rant: Optimism takes work. Pessimism is the lazy route.

I say that without meaning to call any individual lazy, but rather that this is my observation of my own self over the course of my life. I'm not at all embarrassed to say I am inspired by people like Fred Rogers to take the effort to find good and to create good. It's easy to see bad things in the world--bad things make press (and that's been true since at least the 1600s, so don't bother dinging any modern media in particular). It's much harder to see good things. It's therefore easier to conclude that humanity is wicked. Moreover, it's possible to recognize that humanity is wicked, or at least flawed if one wishes to be generous, and yet still not despair, still retain high ideals and great hopes.
 

Firefly

Troubadour
It seems to me this is largely an issue of worldview. If you look at the world, and you see that humanity is greedy/destructive/irredeemably horrible, then your totally free to write your fiction through that lens. But it's not a lens that everyone shares. Stories that do my follow that paradigm may break believability for you, but that doesn't necessarily make them objectively unrealistic.

I'm not going to try and argue about the respective good/evil of humanity though. I don't think that train of conversation is going to lead anywhere productive.
 

Vaporo

Inkling
Well AnnoyingKid, you're free to have your own opinion, but it's not one that I or seemingly many others on this site share.

On the subject of fantasy races, are you suggesting that we create fantasy races that are perfect? That seems incredibly boring, but I suppose you could frame a story that way. Your protagonist travels around meeting people who embody some ideal or another.

Frankly AnnoyingKid, you seem to post in a lot of controversial threads. You waste no time before espousing your political opinion and worldview and seem to enjoy creating dissent and controversy when none is called for. You seem to be what a more polite version of my dad would call a "feces stirrer." You're just trying to make a stink.
 
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