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Why sci-fi is bad for tech design
- dredmorbius 7y agoSci Fi, most especially visual sci fi (film, television), is most principally at communicating a narrative to a user, and in video, doing so in a visually compelling manner. The needs of such interfaces are fundamentally different from those of someone whose interests are solving a specific task problem. (This disjunction is why, fundamentally, film and text narratives are at odds with reality: the problem domains are different. Hollywood gets reality wrong, because reality is not Hollywood's domain, visual storytelling is.) Neil Postman and Michael and Joan Heusemann each have a set of questions that should be asked regarding technology. From Postman, in Technopoly, his "six questions to ask about technology": 1. What is the problem to which this technology is a solution? 2. Whose problem is it? 3. What new problems might be created by solving the original problem? 4. Which people and what institutions will be most seriously harmed by this new technology? 5. What changes in language are being forced by these new technologies? 6. What sort of people and institutions gain special economic and political power from this new technology? The Heusemanns fail to distil their critique into a similar set of questions, though they do ask: 1. Can technology solve major environmental and social problems? What are the limitations of tech? 2. Why do most people believe in technological progress and uncritically accept any technology? 3. Are there simple and effective low-tech solutions, and what can we do? The book's table of contents outlines their general argument and prescription well: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/21pc8c/michael_joyce_heusemann_technofix_why_technology/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/21pc8c/michael...