Seveneves Is a Great Book by Neal Stephenson, But It's Wrong IMO
Intro
First, I should say that I'm no one to act as a critic for Neal Stephenson's work. Second, Cryptonomicon is one of my favourite books. Third, I'd recommend reading Seveneves yourself and making your own conclusions. It was issued in 2015 and I see some parallels in modern history, and the point that I'm making is that the logic of how extinction events influence humanity is completely different from what's in the book. And regretfully, I have some experience with totalitarian and paternalistic regimes, so bear with me.
World becoming totalitarian
The story starts with the Moon's destruction and it suddenly causes democratic states to become totalitarian. Well, I like one more sci-fi book about extinction events, notably the war with the aliens; the book is called Ender's Game. The society is pretty totalitarian there as well, but people make choices. You can have pretty bad choices, but as long as you have them, it's not all over. Ender's parents had the choice to have a child or not, as they were allowed to have him only if they gave him away. But the darkness in which Seveneves immersed me started with the absence of choice: whether you have loved ones or not, you have to leave Earth without them, you don't have a choice. And it's not even the distant future, so the society should be the same, not used to totalitarian decisions. I want to have a choice to die the way I've chosen with the people I want, that's all I'm saying.
It's also a very slippery slope to put some interests of a society above the individual. Who gets these interests right? Who manages the risks of manipulating these interests? It opens a Pandora's box, just as unlimited and uncontrolled power does.
Somebody knows the solution
Like, who trusts the politicians? It sounds pretty paternalistic to me to sit in front of the TV and listen to the truths someone decided to be the truths and put into the mouths of politicians. The lack of critical thinking and the lack of options is the bad thing, and it's a lot worse than extinction. Extinction is still probable; it's not guaranteed.
I work in project management, and I know what uncertainty and risks mean. I haven't worked with extinction events – it may change a lot, putting more pressure on you – but you still have to make plans and assign tasks. What's the best team? It's a diverse team, and by "diverse" I mean different opinions. I get the diversity movement as opposed to the discrimination of minorities, but to me, the discrimination question never arose, as having a different opinion and being brave enough to escalate it prevailed. That's how you deal with uncertainty, and this allows you to have more options to choose from. This way you can notice some crucial conditions on the ground, which put all the big and beautiful plans developed in the Ivory Tower into the trash bin. Censorship doesn't work, because it doesn't change reality; it can only influence the perception of reality for a short period of time.
You need to encourage rebels, you need to encourage disobedience, because only then you have several options to choose from. I remember the faces of the people when plan A went to the trash and we turned to plan B, which they considered trash in their ignorance. They said nothing, and they said it all.
Personally, I can imagine much more pessimistic scenarios for the events described: civil wars, or international conflicts over resources to secure the best possible party at the end. I think of the politics in the bunkers with the cyanide. Or Don't Look Up – that’s practically a documentary.
The level of tech is a retro sci-fi
I have a personal beef with this: it was retro sci-fi in 2015 already. Seriously, nothing better than the Orlan suit and the ISS? It's so annoying to me because it indicates such a great distrust in humanity. We are now in a completely different place with Roskosmos in ruins with its rockets and spacesuits; there's a whole new space industry, meaning not just SpaceX, but other rocket companies and lots of other companies inventing stuff around space exploration. I can comprehend "doing what we can with what we've got," but we've got a lot more in terms of human talent and inventions.
Depressive
It's just depressive. The world has changed toward the pessimistic side a lot since 2015, to the extent depicted in the sad joke: the cleverest people died around 2020 to catch all the progress and not see all the shame we live in. And in a depressive world we need hope; again, I don't even think about influencing someone's writing, I just can't stand depressive fiction in the current context. I get that you need something to overcome, but Andy Weir's characters had to overcome a lot as well; in Project Hail Mary it's an extinction event. The main character is far from being a hero or even brave, but he still has humor, and that is what makes us human beings and gives us hope. Again, the book Seveneves is great, I just refuse to fall into depression. And I would discourage anyone from making a choice for depression and being too serious. It just doesn't make any sense, sorry.
A couple of quotes
"I have realized what your trouble is: you are too serious. A smart face is not yet a sign of intelligence, gentlemen. All the most stupid things on earth are done with that very expression. Smile, gentlemen... smile!"
The Very Same Munchhausen, by Grigory Gorin.
"Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution."
Often attributed to Albert Einstein.