
What sci-fi can tell us about the future - eliotpeper
https://www.economist.com/the-world-in/2019/12/31/what-sci-fi-can-tell-us-about-the-future
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apocalypstyx
Claims such as these always make me think of the opening paragraphs of
Stanislaw Lem's essay Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans[1].

 _No one in his right mind seeks the psychological truth about crime in
detective stories. Whoever seeks such truth will turn rather to Crime and
Punishment. In relation to Agatha Christie, Dostoevsky constitutes a higher
court of appeal, yet no one in his right mind will condemn the English author
's stories on this account. They have a right to be treated as the
entertaining thrillers they are, and the tasks Dostoevsky set himself are
foreign to them._

 _If anyone is dissatisfied with SF in its role as an examiner of the future
and of civilization, there is no way to make an analogous move from literary
oversimplifications to full-fledged art, because there is no court of appeal
from this genre. There would be no harm in this, save that American SF,
exploiting its exceptional status, lays claim to occupy the pinnacles of art
and thought. One is annoyed by the pretentiousness of a genre which fends off
accusations of primitivism by pleading its entertainment character and then,
once such accusations have been silenced, renews its overweening claims. By
being one thing and purporting to be another, SF promotes a mystification
which, moreover, goes on with the tacit consent of readers and public._

[1]
[https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/lem5art.htm](https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/lem5art.htm)

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papreclip
This is some lousy prose for writing about writing

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m463
lot 'o ten dollar words...

(was Lem's writing translated?)

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nine_k
I suppose Lem wrote in Polish.

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spectramax
Sci-fi depictions of everything bothers me. Everything just looks like Tron.
Why? Because sci-fi authors are obsessed with shallow aesthetics and design -
the "futuristic" look, functionality and objectivity take a back seat. The sad
thing is that people like Elon Musk embrace the sci-fi look and that has
influenced the new dragon capsule design, the spacesuit design, just because
it looks "cool". How about ignoring how something appears, and focusing on
functionality, maintainability, operability, serviceability, legibility, etc.
Let's replace all buttons and knobs with touchscreens everywhere in a space
cockpit because it fits Elon's taste of aesthetics inspired by sci-fi movies.
Ugh... this stuff bothers me.

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mr_tristan
This is the one aspect of The Expanse, the tv series, that I like a lot. One
day, I'd actually think their terminal system would actually be a real thing:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/03/08/science...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/03/08/science-
and-tech-in-syfys-the-expanse-it-may-look-like-a-cell-phone-but-its-a-hand-
terminal/#47ccce61752d)

(Unfortunately, this would probably require public infrastructure, not
private, which just seems to create more walled gardens. But... I digress...)

This approach to technology is really a major difference from the expanse and
a lot of other sci-fi. FTA:

> The writers and creators of The Expanse take the view that technology
> develops over time to serve human needs but it doesn’t do away with those
> needs by either wholly satisfying them or destroying the people who have
> them. Technology advances but the human problems remain.

In many ways, a lot of sci-fi writes focuses on technology first, people
second. And _that_ often resembles "concept products" that never see the light
of day.

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remarkEon
I love that show. I picked it up again a couple weeks ago after trailing off
during Season 2 because of work.

Agree with all your points, and I'll make one more:

The way that they blend the "gesture" interfaces (the "iPhone" device, the map
and orbit planner, the wall screens) with tactile interfaces (physical
keyboards at critical positions on the spacecraft, like weapons and burn
control) signal they put some deep thought into it. Gesture and touch-screen
stuff is fine, in very specific instances. You will _need_ a tactile surface
to touch in many of the kind of (future) environments that the show depicts.

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mr_tristan
I had the exact similar thought: it's the way the touchscreens, voice
interaction, and tactile systems melded together felt _intuitive_ instead of
showy or glitzy.

While terminals were often just a basic touchscreen, many critical elements,
like the chairs on the ships, had tactile input (joysticks, buttons, etc) - to
deal with input under gravitational shifts.

It really gives everything a greater physicality.

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somishere
Looked at this while at uni over a couple of papers, tho not entirely fresh in
the mind 15 years later. But would suggest that Scifi, like the western and
other escapist genres, are surely more about promoting complex reasoning than
embedding any kind of explicit ideology or aesthetic. Yes popular themes may
also find themselves thoughtfully resurrected / enshrined in the creative
output of the faithful, but is it the wonder and drive, engendered through the
source material, distilled into future/present realities, that shoulder a more
convincing burden?

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imvetri
Samething which "the past-sci-fi told us about the preset".

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jasonvorhe
Paywalled, unfortunately.

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formercoder
Isn’t there a contradiction between the constant complaining about paywalls by
the HN crowd and the same crowd’s dislike of ad driven platforms? Someone
wrote this - don’t they need to get paid for it?

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pytester
If the it's neoliberal journalism surely the market, rather than ideology,
should decide how it should be paid for?

Currently, the market seems more keen on ads.

Personally, I'd be happy to pay for investigative journalism (e.g.
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/investigations](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/investigations))...
but not the kind of journalism which cites "tweets" as research and doesn't
think enough of its journalists to give them a byline.

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formercoder
Indeed, publications can choose to survive on ads or subscriptions. The market
will dictate who’s successful.

