Because so many leftists see space & high tech as a site of socialist futures—a constellation of topics on which, despite my primitivist reputation, i have done a lot of research & reading—I have compiled a list of relevant sources I think should be mandatory or are very useful.

The first book I think should be mandatory for any leftist interested in space, high tech, astrodynamics, etc, is a popular one written specifically for science fiction authors who aim to write hard sci fi, which is precisely why i think its such a good intro. Charles L Adler’s:

Note: I will not be providing links, just titles, because it’s too much effort, also the besides this work, the first part of the thread consists in popular works or things of which I am critical, rather than I endorse. Skip below for those.

I have a ton of academic & popular sources on this constellation of topics—space, interstellar travel, AI, high tech, Astrodynamics, political economy of technology/energy, automation, post scarcity, SETI, habitation—but this 1 should be the 1st even for those w STEM backgrounds

This is because science fiction informs so many peoples views on this subject, so this takes expressly that aim in mind. With that in mind I am going to begin with other popular, & sci fi Recs on the subject.

While I want people to move away from science fiction as their models, I’ve decided to start with some other sources that are either fictional or concern fiction, as soft intros to the topic besides the one above.

These works represent histories or otherwise intros to these subjects like space & transhumanism. Two of them—Kurzweil & Bastani—I think are absolute BS, while the other two—Gitliz & Groys—are great & should be read.

One can see the manifestations of these ideas in many left wing or other aspirational projects as seen in entries like these. These are heavy on vision but short on science.

Here are some more aspirational examples, and while dreaming is great, it’s no substitute for actual reality.

These are serious & scholarly works which I recommend for more legitimate work on these subjects, but which, nonetheless, are rife with aspirational & science fictional influence & thinking (which they admit, but alas). These all concern astrodynamics & space propulsion.

These, by contrast, concern the social aspects of space, like SETI, xenology, etc. again, these are weird because they mix legitimate scientific scholarly work with fictional thinking.

Here are some more works in this vein, specifically concerning economics, including a famous entry by Krugman. Several of these are written purposefully tongue in cheek, while others try to be serious.

But moving from the sublime & ridiculous to the realistic, here are some serious scholarly works on the history & social science of space etc

While these concern the political, economic & military aspects. These are already more realistic, concern more banal topics, and are decidedly less optimistic than the above. Many of the limits of these topics besides the physical are the social & economic

This leads us to a very important point, raised by Cirkovic, Smil, and others. Namely, long term space migration depends on having solved the issues—the biosphere, political economy, ecology, social control—for which it is proposed as a solution.

One notices that scholars of energy, technology, history, social science, economics, ecology, climatology, politics, existential risk, logistics & SETI are substantially less sanguine about the possibilities here. Here are some more on those topics.

Some more

Of course, no such analysis would be complete without radical & Marxian analyzes !

Some more specific technical & social scientific papers (sorry if I repeat sources at any time, I’m working off of my phone library)

I have a bunch more, but it’s hard to keep them all organized. The focus here is clearly space, SETI, terraformation, interstellar travel, astrodynamics. I’ve done AI, robotics, automation & related threads elsewhere & would be glad to do them again, but this focusses on space

Here is the long and the short of it—those from science fiction, non academic, political/polemical, and purely engineering backgrounds tend to have high aspirations for space. Those from space studies, STS, energy, SETI, political economy, ecology, astrodynamics & Soc sci do not