

The best way to predict the future is to prevent it - signa11
http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/11/03/the-best-way-to-predict-the-future-is-to-prevent-it/

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hga
Interestingly this is an approach some really serious SF writers have taken to
build what they considered to be minimally plausible future histories:

Back in the '70s Jerry Pournelle did this literally for his Codominion series:
the US and the USSR agreed to rule the world together and one of the
corollaries was suppressing science and technological development. Not only
did that fit _very_ well into the Zeitgeist of the '70s, it allowed him to
write about a future that wasn't much advanced from what he could easily
foresee. Later this was continued by a post-fall of the first interstellar
empire series of stories, which again allowed for limitations in advancement.
At least one other series of his also uses this trick in one way or another.

Vernor Vinge had a real problem writing SF after coining "the Singularity"
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity>) and addressed that
in various ways:

In _The Peace War_ the rulers of the world through a technological
breakthrough they ruthlessly exploit of course suppress or co-opt the
development of science and technology they view as potentially threatening.

In _Marooned in Realtime_ the vast bulk of humanity has transcended and is
gone from Earth and the action is with small groups of people who were
suspended in time prior to this. One of them was fairly close to when the
Singularity happened....

In the "Deep" series (evidently formally called "Zones of Thought") the galaxy
is roughly divided into zones starting at the center; the ones of interest are
_The Slow Zone_ where FTL and AI are impossible, an outer zone where societies
can transcend through a Singularity, and in _A Fire Upon the Deep_ the action
is almost entirely in _The Beyond_ that's in-between.

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hga
Maybe it's not quite so bad; here's the beginning of one of the more
interesting comments ([http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/11/03/the-best-way-
to-pre...](http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/11/03/the-best-way-to-predict-
the-future-is-to-prevent-it/#comment-222551)):

" _Dave Brown says

"JP, If you take the long view I’d argue that there is an equivalent to
Moore’s Law in software. This law is that each year it becomes slightly easier
to create a service that does something for a customer...._"

