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As I understand it, the job of futurism isn't so much to literally predict the future as it is to provide inspiration for it. The author may have a point that

As I understand it, the job of futurism isn't so much to literally predict the future as it is to provide inspiration for it. The author may have a point that the current futurism inspiring Silicon Valley isn't useful; however, it doesn't seem to understand that any alternative must still be inspiring. This is something that I find frustrating about modern critics of tech and society even though I agree with them that certain things need to be fixed. At best they are able to muster up a saccharine, Demolition Man style utopia and at worst a spartan society where ambition must be abandoned in the name of environmentalism/egalitarianism/etc. Does anyone know of any alternate visions of the future that are still inspiring?

pdimitar 7y ago
The "Ghost in the Shell" universe, maybe? People are able to replace parts of their bodies with prosthetics, including organs. It's not free though, and society and world there aren't changed much compared to now. I still find GITS to be one of the more slightly pessimistic but overall realistic predictions of the future. A lot better technology but same problems as we have now.
- livueta 7y ago
  If we're talking anime, I'd also nominate Dennou Coil - near-future, quite plausible examination of pervasive AR tech. Instead of the usual "prop for generic authoritarian hellscape" dynamic, you get a fairly balanced look at the effects of the tech on a recognizably similar society. I think I found the concept/world particularly compelling because the bulk of the story ends up being about where and how that tech breaks: for instance, you've got an underground economy where the primary currency is essentially zero-days and plot points that (implicitly) center on concepts like cache coherency and eventually-consistent distributed systems. Most of the other examples of sci-fi futures I wouldn't hate living in are far-future, the Culture being the obvious one. The grandparent seems to be on to something: there aren't a lot of hopeful (or at least ambivalently complex) recent works that focus on near futures instead of post-scarcity spacemen.
  - pdimitar 7y ago
    Thank you for the recommendation. I'll definitely watch it.
    - Filligree 7y ago
      It's a great story. It's also seen entirely from the perspective of children, none of whom fully understand what's going on. There's an acceptable backstory to everything -- yes, even the ending -- but the show itself doesn't explain anything. That's all in secondary materials, little of which was translated. (Well, it's based on a novel series. Does that count as 'secondary'?) If you assume a rational universe, you can probably figure out most of it. Or if you're interested, poke me sometime and we can chat about it. It is, admittedly, one of my very favorite stories.
morgancmartin 7y ago
I highly recommend Ramez Naam's Nexus Trilogy.[1] I think Naam's take on the genre hits a lot of the bullet points others in the thread have cited as desirable characteristics in their ideal sci-fi. It takes what is in my opinion the most reasonable approach to the shiny vs non-shiny duality and simply includes both. From the devastating effects advanced technology could wreak against a group of tech abstaining monks to the spiritual enlightenment that might be obtained if humans could communicate mind-to-mind, I think the series does a great job of illustrating the best and worst of what the near future could conceivably have to offer us. It's possible you'll find it to be too inline with SV's idealistic picture of a future where truly outlandish things like truly conscious artificial intelligences or indefinite life extension are actually within the realm of possibility -- but despite Naam's choice to feature these same kinds of "tech miracles", I think it still manages to stay remarkably down to earth. Despite the grandiosity of some of the possibilities described it all had so much detail so as to still feel plausible and even familiar at points. IIRC Naam took a fair bit of care in basing most of the tech and predictions in the book on actual scientific opinion of what might be possible given humanity's current scientific understanding and rate of progress. Despite having to suspend my disbelief at a few points, I enjoyed the hell out of it and count it as one of my favorite sci-fi universes up there with Stross' Accelerando and Banks' Culture series. Here's hoping you do as well! [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642710-nexus https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642710-nexus

pdimitar 7y ago

The "Ghost in the Shell" universe, maybe? People are able to replace parts of their bodies with prosthetics, including organs. It's not free though, and society and world there aren't changed much compared to now. I still find GITS to be one of the more slightly pessimistic but overall realistic predictions of the future. A lot better technology but same problems as we have now.

livueta 7y ago
If we're talking anime, I'd also nominate Dennou Coil - near-future, quite plausible examination of pervasive AR tech. Instead of the usual "prop for generic authoritarian hellscape" dynamic, you get a fairly balanced look at the effects of the tech on a recognizably similar society. I think I found the concept/world particularly compelling because the bulk of the story ends up being about where and how that tech breaks: for instance, you've got an underground economy where the primary currency is essentially zero-days and plot points that (implicitly) center on concepts like cache coherency and eventually-consistent distributed systems. Most of the other examples of sci-fi futures I wouldn't hate living in are far-future, the Culture being the obvious one. The grandparent seems to be on to something: there aren't a lot of hopeful (or at least ambivalently complex) recent works that focus on near futures instead of post-scarcity spacemen.
- pdimitar 7y ago
  Thank you for the recommendation. I'll definitely watch it.
  - Filligree 7y ago
    It's a great story. It's also seen entirely from the perspective of children, none of whom fully understand what's going on. There's an acceptable backstory to everything -- yes, even the ending -- but the show itself doesn't explain anything. That's all in secondary materials, little of which was translated. (Well, it's based on a novel series. Does that count as 'secondary'?) If you assume a rational universe, you can probably figure out most of it. Or if you're interested, poke me sometime and we can chat about it. It is, admittedly, one of my very favorite stories.

morgancmartin 7y ago

I highly recommend Ramez Naam's Nexus Trilogy.[1] I think Naam's take on the genre hits a lot of the bullet points others in the thread have cited as desirable characteristics in their ideal sci-fi. It takes what is in my opinion the most reasonable approach to the shiny vs non-shiny duality and simply includes both. From the devastating effects advanced technology could wreak against a group of tech abstaining monks to the spiritual enlightenment that might be obtained if humans could communicate mind-to-mind, I think the series does a great job of illustrating the best and worst of what the near future could conceivably have to offer us. It's possible you'll find it to be too inline with SV's idealistic picture of a future where truly outlandish things like truly conscious artificial intelligences or indefinite life extension are actually within the realm of possibility -- but despite Naam's choice to feature these same kinds of "tech miracles", I think it still manages to stay remarkably down to earth. Despite the grandiosity of some of the possibilities described it all had so much detail so as to still feel plausible and even familiar at points. IIRC Naam took a fair bit of care in basing most of the tech and predictions in the book on actual scientific opinion of what might be possible given humanity's current scientific understanding and rate of progress. Despite having to suspend my disbelief at a few points, I enjoyed the hell out of it and count it as one of my favorite sci-fi universes up there with Stross' Accelerando and Banks' Culture series. Here's hoping you do as well! [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642710-nexus https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642710-nexus