Slashdot Mirror
A Case For the Necessity of Science Fiction
unc0nn3ct3d writes "This article makes an interesting point about the necessity of science fiction — or, more specifically, speculative fiction as a tool to aid in the long-term survival of the human species. 'We live in a world that is incredibly frightening for a growing portion of the population because of the exponential rate of change we are experiencing. Our world is changing so fast now that we often don't have time to contemplate the full ramifications that come with the increasingly rapid adoption of new technologies and social changes. Most often this is simply because these changes are being introduced almost one after another after another, without any time to breathe. Speculative fiction, however, if widely adopted, makes it almost instinctive that we think about these situations and possible outcomes before they even arise.'"
I find in talking with my wife and other friends/family who are not SciFi readers that they are often surprised by certain events in the news. Whereas I will say something like, "Oh, this reminds me of Snow Crash, or Left Hand of Darkness ... kewl!"
Good quality, 'what if'-style SciFi keeps your world view more flexible than reading most any other kind of genre.
We do need to speed up social conventions to match the speed of technology. For example part of the unemployment crises that we are now seeing is due to technology displacing workers. Whet people don't seem to grasp is that there is a very serious intention to replace all labor with machines. Education and shifting from job skill to job skills will not be enough to keep afloat soon. Yet when social scientists try to offer solutions they are seen as crackpots and lunatics. Frankly some of their solutions make a lot of sense.
However there are some basic issues that never resolved before robotics and the like advanced and one wonders what will happen if robotics is able to solve them. For example robots designed to remove dents and to paint cars might be able to keep every car looking new. But sense we were never able to do that before robotics what will be the economic effect of doing it. The same is true of house and lawn work. Good roofs and fresh paint on a sharp looking lawn without human effort would be a shocker. But what does that do to an economy. We don't even know if humans should be involved in an economy or whether we best let robots and computers serve us all things that we need.
But a surprising amount of technology is inspired directly or indirectly from fiction. I work in robotics and I can tell you that there isn't a single person I've met robotics conferences who didn't grow up thinking about robots from the works of Asimov or Lucas or Japanese anime. We loved them and we wanted to be a part of that - to make it so.
Science fiction is a history of the future - a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
I had a teacher as a child who told me "art teaches us how to be human." It's a compelling idea that neatly sums up my experience with novels, music, theatre, and some movies. I think, though, if it can also be a deceptive illusion that distracts us and convinces us the world is better than it is and we ourselves are kinder, more knowledgeable, better meaning, more competent than we really are.
If I understand the article right, the idea is that speculative sci-fi helps people beat future shock. By reading/viewing speculative stories, models of good technology use lodge in our minds and we get prepared to make decisions about using tools that come to us. I can see that. But counter that rosy image with the idea that stories featuring high technology instead train us to acquiesce to technology in our lives, not making conscious choices but instead sleepwalking into an isolated, un-fun, inhuman world all the while under the illusion that we're in control of the process.
I'm inclined to think that the best way to make good choices is by paying attention to the here and now, not by putting "the logical part of our brains... 100% in the future at all times." We can recognize good technology by seeing the good it does in our lives, not by comparing it Blade Runner, Star Trek, or District 9. (or Snowcrash, Red Mars, or Neuromancer). Marry that with social interaction, so that adopting/creating new technology is a communal, connected process and we have a good chance of making good decisions.
The article has much blithering about "exponential change", probably written by someone who has no idea what that means, or that the exponent might be < 1. Actually, the rate of change in lifestyle for the average person in the developed world is slowing down. And much of the change is negative.
It's useful to think of the Industrial Revolution as starting in 1808. That's the first year someone bought a train ticket and went someplace. Technology prior to that was spotty and didn't have much broad impact. Most people never got more than 50 miles from where they were born, just as in the previous 5000 years or so.
Jump ahead 50 years, to 1858. Railroads were all over France, Germany, Britain, and the eastern US. Telegraph lines were widespread. The first Atlantic cable was just starting to work. Heavy machinery and big factories were producing goods in volume. The world had become much smaller, and there was far more man-made stuff in it. The life of someone who lived from 1808 to 1858 changed enormously during one lifespan.
Jump ahead to 1908. Railroads to everywhere worth going. Electric power. Telephones. Wireless. Cars. The first airplanes. Much more manufacturing. The world of 1908 had early versions of most of the important stuff we have now, yet it was a century ago.
Jump ahead to 1958. Almost everything we have now already existed. Jet aircraft, nuclear power plants, space satellites, transistors, computers, television, Interstate highways, data communications - they were all up and running. The first IC was proposed in 1958. Antibiotics were available, and DNA had been identified. Manufacturing was so good that production gluts were common. Agriculture in the developed world was producing so much food that surpluses were a major issue.
Now look at the last 50 years. All the stuff from 1958 works, usually better, but most of what's happened since then is tweaks on 1958 technology. No new big sources of energy. No big progress in space travel in 40 years. Progress has slowed down. Per capita income real for the median American hasn't increased much in 40 years. Corporate leaders don't even talk about "progress" any more; just "change".
The next 50 years are going to be about running out of stuff. Oil, copper, neodymium, and tantalum are already getting scarce. Substitutes all use more energy and money. A century ago, raw materials were available near where they were used. The easy to get at resources have already been extracted. It looks like it's all downhill from here.
Which is why SF has lost its optimism. Popular SF today is either space opera or about vampires. Or it's about a realistic, but grim, near future. SF is now just entertainment; it has no major cultural function, other than perhaps preparing us for the future society of scarcity.
"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel." - Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai.
Dude: I am no forensics master, but aren't you violating a basic premise of debate by countering the GP's actual example with a speculative future scenario in which you cherry-picked the parameters to bolster your agenda?
...not as nice of a tactic when used both sides, it seems.
If that is a legitimate debate tactic, then one presumes he could counter with a similarly cherry-picked scenario where he and his firm counter the structural shift in their industry by developing "programs" for these devices to create "fad wood cut designs of the week" (ala iPhone). He would then consolidate his firm's massive profits and, of course, go on to personally develop economical nanotechnology and nuclear fusion--thereby ending scarcity for the entire world!
Aside from that, it seems that most of your concerns miss the point that most of your future scenarios result in one of two general outcomes. One possibility is that the trend away from agriculture to manufacturing, and then away from manufacturing to services, and then away from services to "aaaa! no more work for Americans!" is economically sustainable at a national level, then there is no problem. In such a case, the general wealth level of the nation (and the society at large) is high enough that we are borderline post-scarcity (otherwise, markets for 'new things/services' would emerge). That is, one way or another, we continue to be to afford to pay other countries to "make stuff" for us. Don't know how we would manage to do that, but good for us if so.
However, what if such a trend is unsustainable? I believe this to be the more likely case. In that case, China (et al) stops feeling the urge to continue to inflate our standard of living by floating our colossal trade deficits. I mean, what are we giving today them besides US Treasury IOU's? (the fact that they can trade US dollars for oil is notwithstanding, because eventually the world will decide that the farce has gone on long enough if they value nothing we produce) Okay, so, now the value of our dollar plummets, we aren't getting our market flooded by goods that are manufactured at prices with which we can't compete domestically, and then suddenly we start finding it is cost-effective to manufacture in the US again.
Of course, everyone in the US is poorer on average in the latter scenario, because free trade tends to be ruthlessly efficient--and inefficiency is expensive. For example, it isn't efficient to pay a union worker $40/hour + benefits to screw on jar lids, when a robot could do it much faster, more accurately, and more cheaply. Are you aware that you share the same concerns as the original Luddites? The structural economic shifts in efficiency brought by technological progress have been beneficial to the economy & society as a whole, and there are two centuries of evidence to support this.
Of course, individual actors must "evolve or die", just as the buggywhip manufacturers needed to migrate into manufacturing automobile tires (or bondage gear, depending on their marketing department's forecasts). Anyone can predict dire economic scenarios due to technological advances, but you will forgive me if I believe that they are unlikely given the overwhelming preponderance of the historical evidence.