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What gets made is what people want. We didn't get flying cars at $250,000/car. We got 140 characters for free because that's what people wanted. We didn't get
by jjb123 14y ago
What gets made is what people want.
We didn't get flying cars at $250,000/car. We got 140 characters for free because that's what people wanted. We didn't get hoverboards, not for lack of technology, but it just turned out that we wanted to search the world's knowledge with Google.
We're frogs in boiling water, not knowing just how innovative we're becoming as a people. And sci-fi writers are just bad (or as bad as typical entrepreneurs) at guessing what people want.
- icebraining 14y agoWell, good sci-fi writers don't try. As Ursula Le Guin puts it, Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying. https://raw.github.com/gist/4424894 https://raw.github.com/gist/4424894