5 ms·

Those social structures are certainly salient, but do - sincerely - hope we see some positive alternative become prominent in the public mind.

contingencies 5y ago
It would seem, in a post-COVID 2022, writing from cash-is-gone Shenzhen, the welcome mat of the PRD-sprawl with news today of Canada's anti-protest crackdowns, Korean epidemia, and Chinese naval lasers off the Australian coast, that Gibson understated the human appetite for autocracy and big governance and overstated the facility of megacorps to succeed from nation states as the dominant social architects. Having worked in Samsung HQ, corporate dystopias melded with neo-Confucian or other East Asian culture-derived hierarchies are very much real. Only the AIs and some smart materials are yet to come. Synth-food is on the mark and flying robotics is technically here but not yet accepted by regulators. As someone I met from a major Chinese tech company yesterday said, as he confided corporate think-tank strategic future visions of a phone-free 5G future where smart surfaces like taxi windows beamed real time computing from the privacy-unobtainable corporate cloud and autonomous facial identification precluded antiquated rituals of QR-code based mobile payment, nobody cares about privacy and convenience is king. Gibsonian dystopia is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.
Litost 5y ago
Are there any good studies of how well particular sci-fi writers predicted the future and what processes they used to attempt it. I say this a) As I remember an article ranking John Bruner as one of the best, but can't remember where I read it, though a web search revealed this article [1] listing some of his significant successes in guessing right (though he had some misses as well). b) It lists some of the techniques he tried to do this, 3 years reading up on a variety of topics, visited various places and did some 'parallel thought exercises'? Is there anything similar for any other sci-fi writers or series as it reminds me of the psychohistory idea that popped up recently in Asimov's Foundation TV series which is a rabbit-hole in itself [2]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190509-the-1968-sci-fi-that-spookily-predicted-today https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190509-the-1968-sci-fi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory
- keiferski 5y ago
  You might find this paper interesting: Better Made Up: The Mutual Influence of Science fiction and Innovation https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/better_made_up_the_mutual_influence_of_science_fiction_and_innovation.pdf https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/better_made_up_the_mutu...

contingencies 5y ago

It would seem, in a post-COVID 2022, writing from cash-is-gone Shenzhen, the welcome mat of the PRD-sprawl with news today of Canada's anti-protest crackdowns, Korean epidemia, and Chinese naval lasers off the Australian coast, that Gibson understated the human appetite for autocracy and big governance and overstated the facility of megacorps to succeed from nation states as the dominant social architects. Having worked in Samsung HQ, corporate dystopias melded with neo-Confucian or other East Asian culture-derived hierarchies are very much real. Only the AIs and some smart materials are yet to come. Synth-food is on the mark and flying robotics is technically here but not yet accepted by regulators. As someone I met from a major Chinese tech company yesterday said, as he confided corporate think-tank strategic future visions of a phone-free 5G future where smart surfaces like taxi windows beamed real time computing from the privacy-unobtainable corporate cloud and autonomous facial identification precluded antiquated rituals of QR-code based mobile payment, nobody cares about privacy and convenience is king. Gibsonian dystopia is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.

Litost 5y ago

Are there any good studies of how well particular sci-fi writers predicted the future and what processes they used to attempt it. I say this a) As I remember an article ranking John Bruner as one of the best, but can't remember where I read it, though a web search revealed this article [1] listing some of his significant successes in guessing right (though he had some misses as well). b) It lists some of the techniques he tried to do this, 3 years reading up on a variety of topics, visited various places and did some 'parallel thought exercises'? Is there anything similar for any other sci-fi writers or series as it reminds me of the psychohistory idea that popped up recently in Asimov's Foundation TV series which is a rabbit-hole in itself [2]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190509-the-1968-sci-fi-that-spookily-predicted-today https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190509-the-1968-sci-fi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory

keiferski 5y ago
You might find this paper interesting: Better Made Up: The Mutual Influence of Science fiction and Innovation https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/better_made_up_the_mutual_influence_of_science_fiction_and_innovation.pdf https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/better_made_up_the_mutu...