Science fiction and the unforeseeable future: In the 2020s, let’s imagine better things GlobeDebate
As the decade draws to a close, let us pause a moment and give thanks that science fiction’s alleged ability to predict the future is itself a work of science fiction: Not only is science fiction terrible at predicting the future, I am prepared to make a prediction that science fiction will always be terrible at predicting the future.
The decade to come, we’re told, will be a crucial one, maybe the most crucial when it comes to our species’ survival since that very first decade when our trembling, newly speciated ancestors eked out a tiny evolutionary niche and were not snuffed out by their environments as unsound mutations. I don’t think so. But I feel the same sense of inevitability as you do, the sense that although we can see that the bridge is out ahead, that although we know where the steering wheel and brakes are, that, for some reason, we cannot yank the wheel nor hit the brakes. That, as in a nightmare, we are doomed to sit in mute horror as we careen to our doom.Why this failure of imagination? I blame Margaret Thatcher.
But science fiction needn’t be monochromatic disaster porn. Many of our most cherished science-fictional visions propose a better world – not a perfect one, and never free from strife – but still hopeful and inspiring. The justification for taking such extreme measures is obvious: a 1000 Year Reich is a horror too ghastly to countenance, but rendering our planet incapable of sustaining human life is even worse.
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