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Other posters have noted that this isn't new at all. One could almost say that what's been predicted by futurologists over time is what Sci-Fi can see. To me,
by joe_the_user 8y ago
Other posters have noted that this isn't new at all. One could almost say that what's been predicted by futurologists over time is what Sci-Fi can see.
To me, what's interesting is the ways the lens of Sci-Fi can distort one's ideas. The flying car is the most classic, wrong science fiction prediction ever (even if it should come to pass). The way that the flying car fails is that ground motion doesn't translate directly into flying motion - flying transport has achieved some equivalence to ground motion but going from a "flying bus" (a conventional airplane) to a personal "flying car" turns out to be a vastly harder problem than going from a train to a car.
One might say, Sci-Fi involves extrapolation of experience, since the writer ultimately has describe the experiences of their characters. So what's missing overall, is "the dull parts", as least for "classic Sci-Fi", which has historically been adventure novels extrapolated into a new world (the novels of Robert Heinlein being the model).
Here, in a sense, dystopian and other novelist genres can give further insight a leg-up because they aren't constrained to make the future fun.
A really interesting story is EM Forrester's story "The Machine Stops", predicted many aspects of the Internet in 1909!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
- jacobush 8y agoNot only many, I'd say the very defining aspects. It sends chills down my spine.
- keyle 8y agoI know the flying car is a terrible idea and it's not practical or great, but the little boy inside of me still wants it every day!
- onion2k 8y agoThat's why it makes great scifi but terrible business.
- tokai 8y agoWhat about getting a gyrocopter?
- keyle 8y agoIt has to be silent(ish)! and and and it should work with reverse-gravity something something :-)
- DennisP 8y agoWell it's not antigravity but this sound-blocking tube might help make ducted fans quieter: https://www.fastcompany.com/90316833/scientists-have-discovered-a-shape-that-blocks-all-sound-even-your-co-workers https://www.fastcompany.com/90316833/scientists-have-discove...
- jimmy1 8y agoI believe that is because the best Sci-Fi always struck a balance of being magical or whimsical, of course, but not being so farfetched that one couldn't imagine how they could be created. Imagine all the hobby scientific research done by scientists to determine if lightsabers were actually possible, or if warp speed could be obtained!
- nostrademons 8y agoOne of the most incongruous anachronisms I've read in sci-fi was in Asimov's Second Foundation, Arkady Darrell is introduced writing in a diary with a device that (IIRC) telepathically reads your mind and converts it to text. She starts daydreaming, and as a result her daydreams are transcribed into the diary. Then she has to start the entry over again because it's ruined. It's ironic that 50,000 years in the future, when humanity is spread across the Galactic Empire, the future course of history can be predicted based on human psychology, and devices can mind-read to text, that they still hadn't invented word processing. As a kid reading it in the 90s, it was amazing that the main character would be seriously peeved off by something that was a solved problem to me.
- curtis 8y agoAsimov's way of writing was very typewriter-centric, so maybe it's not surprising that he in particular would fail to imagine word processor-like technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Characteristics
- nostrademons 8y agoSecond Foundation also came out in 1949, before the stored-program computer was invented. Computers at the time were room-sized electromechanical devices used for codebreaking or artillery calculations; there were no more than a dozen or so in the world, the general population was unaware of them, they couldn't be used interactively, there were no plans to use them for text (a typical diary entry wouldn't have fit into the EDSAC's memory anyway), and the idea that a computer could fit in your pocket and let you edit anywhere within a document probably seemed stranger than the idea of spaceflight.
- AJ007 8y agoScience fiction seems to resonate strongest when it introduces new ideas which are reachable. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash seems to be particularly influencial. Sticking some plot line in the future isn’t enough. I miss those moments I had when I was younger, reading Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and the Diamond Age for the very first time. Certainly they all played a driving role in orienting me toward what I ended up spending my life doing. The stories and the characters mattered, but the technology drowned it out.
- zaphirplane 8y agoI don’t understand the point you are trying to make. FTL is significantly harder than a rocket,creating worm holes are significantly harder that well a lot of things, teleportation, AI vs recognising cats in a photo and the list goes on. Nothing special about flying cars if anything it is more possible/closer Re the ground motion, again I don’t understand planes do that. No attack intended