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Philosophical interestingness ranking of sci-fi universes (in terms of meaningfulness, complexity, intelligibility...): 12. Star Wars 11. MCU 10. Doctor Who 9. Dune 8. Star Trek 7. Foundation 6. Deepness in the Sky 5. Hainish 4. Schismatrix 3. Rick & Morty 2. HHG 1. Culture
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Pity so many famous writers didn’t bother to build proper universes. As in literally spanning space. PKD, Heinlein etc are a bunch of killer apps with no platform underneath. Le Guin squeaks through with a vagueworld universe.
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No accident that the top 3 have a strong element of humor and absurdity. Most universes do poorly on the philosophical interestingness test by not taking that element seriously enough.
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Some start out interesting but then go meh. Firefly universe was interesting until I saw the confederacy-apologia angle and couldn’t unsee it. Still interesting as a story but dull as philosophy.
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Hyperion was very interesting but in a very narrow way around the Shrike as a philosophical Rorschach test. I read only one volume. Wasn’t inspired to read the rest when the first one totally punted on actually resolving the Shrike plot 🤬
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People hating on R&M bring so high, I get it. To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.
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Unpopular opinion but Dune is below Star Trek because it is pseudo-deep and too impressed with itself. Premium mediocre intellectualism. Star Trek is middlebrow and knows it. Self awareness gains big points on my scale.
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Replying to @vgr
Man Star Wars don't deserve a spot. Dune lesser than Star Trek?
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I think I like 2nd order worlds that subvert first-order ones. Like Dune is too primal-archetypal to be interesting. But the interesting ones need them to have something to subvert. Dune parody references are more interesting than Dune itself.
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I recommend reading more recent SF. The books on this list are good, but old. The genre hasn’t stagnated, though.