Just got to thinking about this after those threads on The Expanse and Military Sci-Fi (which admittedly is probably the sub-genre least affected by this trend).
I know the case can be made for the existence of some conservative authors or sometimes conservative themes, of course they exist, but are they “swimming upstream” so-to-speak? Going against the flow of “the mainstream” of Sci-Fi?
I’m not looking for a list of conservative authors by the way, I want to hear if the people here think that Sci-Fi as a genre may or may not have an inherent bias towards the new, the previously unseen, and thus “progressive” ideas and ideologies. Not even necessarily to castigate Sci-Fi, merely to attempt to understand what’s happening.
The “Sad Puppies” folks probably have some insights on this subject but I don’t know much about them beyond their existence and their claim that the Sci-Fi book awards system has been subverted by leftist/progressive ideologues:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies
Sad Puppies activists accused the Hugo Awards "of giving awards on the basis of political correctness and favoring authors and artists who aren't straight, white and male".
I do see the ideas of sci-if and “progressivism” as connected, but I’m not sure if that’s an inherent aspect of the genre, or if that is perhaps a cultural relic. I lean towards the idea that it is likely largely cultural (i.e. well respected sci-fi authors of old put “culturally progressive” themes in their books about Scientific “progress”, and that has carried on to this day) but I’m interested in where everyone else falls on the subject.
There are certain ideas and concepts that inevitibly would crossover with certain progressive stances.
IE, the idea of a one world government while not inherently progressive does have a lot of crossover with what we've actually been seeing play out. (IE, global elites pulling strings on a global scale). This is something that admittedly is liable to happen in some way shape or form whenever mankind ends up expanding and colonizing other planets, even if it's something similar to the US's general structuring.
There is also an inherent risk with how dangerous technology can be in the hands of any random madman when the power, capability, and accessibility of that technology scales up. Just imagine how much damage a single person could potentially do with a Star Trek-styled warp core or nanites. This of course ends up with the typical crossover of regulation measures, all the way down to things like gun control, "loicensing" requirements for anything, etc.