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It seems like the article is just beating up a straw man. It doesn't define futurism, name any major futurologists, and seems to just rely on the stereotype tha
by wisty 8y ago
It seems like the article is just beating up a straw man. It doesn't define futurism, name any major futurologists, and seems to just rely on the stereotype that it's "flying cars" and "the Jetsons". It does mention The Net, and notes that ordering a pizza online is not so different to ordering a pizza on the phone. It conveniently misses the main story - that the main character has essentially no IRL social connections at all (as she telecommutes to work, only socialises online, and doesn't even know her neighbors) which is what allows her to be made a complete unperson when her online records are attacked. Maybe it's not Utopia (another futurist work) but it hardly ignores the cultural impact of technology.
Some science fiction (e.g. The Jetsons) is just a contemporary drama or comedy with fantastical sets and props. But even something as soft as Doctor Who (let alone the likes of Asimov, AC Clarke) often looks at culture (either how radically different it is, or how age-old problems remain). Then there's works like 1984 and Brave New World which were almost entirely about culture.
And it's not like The Jetsons ignored culture. It was deliberately a 1950s sit-com set in the far future, and was a follow-up to The Flintstones which was a 1950s sit-com set in the distant past. The fact that the original was a little conservative in its portrayal of culture might have had something to do with political environment (the Cuban missile crisis was just before it was written). I don't think it entirely ignored the possibility of social change, but was possibly trying to make some kind of statement about which economic system was really on the right side of history.
- posterboy 8y ago> Some science fiction (e.g. The Jetsons) is just a contemporary drama or comedy with fantastical sets and props. Or even modeled after age old stories. Like most writing recycles and reinterprets old material. I started to wonder what historic metaphors the Expanse relies on, what with ship travel taking months, pirates, colonies, the plague - but the opposite of slavery, with unconditional basic income. The gang "the Golden Bough" is a hint at Virgil's Aeneid, I learned today by coincident. It's not hard sci-fi at all. The sci-fi is kept to a minimum as much as the fantasy. That is, the fantastic elements should be kept to a minimum. Now I wonder what that thing (not to spoiler) represents. Just a deus ex machina for sake of the story or a ring of ancient overlords?
- TeMPOraL 8y agoDepends on what you focus. What makes it an intelligent story may be the consequences of ships traveling months, or consequences of UBI. What makes it both intelligent and sci-fi is why ships travel months, how do they travel, what particular technologies are imagined and how they solve the problems of space travel, why UBI is needed, that UBI is UBI and not slavery, etc. Interpreting sci-fi stories as just normal stories with fantasy props robs them of half of their value.
- posterboy 8y agoas I said, ship travel on earth makes the same difference. The ship's propulsion is in the realm of fantasy, even.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoExcept everything about that travel is different. Distances, mode of travel (continuous thrust, flip&burn), time-lag for communication, range and length of combat - all different. If you don't consider object-level descriptions as valuable in itself, then I don't think you'll find much enjoyment in science fiction (especially of works on the harder end of the scale).
- starchild_3001 8y agoI too thought the article's arguments were pretty weak. Brave New World and 1984 are good counterexamples to disprove the article's main point. I would also enjoy seeing a point-by-point analysis of what was predicted and what happened (had the article not missed forest for the trees). The article also argues many things are the same (like drinking water). Well, I know how much life has changed in the last 40 years. These concepts were unknown by the public or not-yet-popular a short 20-25 years ago: internet, smart phone, social media, wearables, electric cars, autopilot, laptops, machine learning, online learning & working... We're going through exponential change, and the author still argues not much has changed in the last 100 years. We're still drinking water etc :) Laughable. If you think think change is only at the top (of economic ladder), see also "The Better Angels of Our Nature" or "It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 years".