Curious. The article mentions Star Trek three times, in all cases referring to The Original Series, while stating that "Outside of niche books and magazines, the golden age of optimistic science fiction did not exist.", which is surprising it how it missed the golden era of Star Trek, beginning with The Next Generation (1987-1994), aka. the reference work for optimistic future in popular sci-fi, subsequently followed by several more series and movies set in the same continuity, culminating with Enterprise (2001 - 2005). That's 18 years of stories about humanity enjoying Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism aka. a post-scarcity society! Seven seasons of a show set on a starship that looks like a luxury hotel inside - because why wouldn't it be?
People still joke about the carpets on starships (including in-universe in the recent shows), but honestly, you can pretty much measure how we've lost the optimistic future by tracking how Star Trek shows (including the post-2005 ones) got darker (literally, I'm talking about how the scenes were lit), the architecture less Hilton-like, and eventually, when carpets started to disappear.
Apropos visual media, there's another example of an optimistic vision of the future, which the article also indirectly mentions: Disney's Tomorrowland - not the fair, the 2015 movie. Severely underrated, that one. I broke down in tears when I watched it (okay, I was in a vulnerable period), because it was an unexpected breath of pure optimism about progress. I mean, the movie is literally about the very thing the article talks about - it recalls the optimism of yore, presents a protagonist who's asking herself and us, where did it all go wrong, and then tackles the question directly. The answer it gives may or may not be any good[0], but at least an attempt was made to talk about it. Sadly, this is the last attempt made so far in popular media, at least as far as I know.
I'm puzzled as to why these two stories were not mentioned. They're not exactly outliers no one has heard of.
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[0] - We're effectively fucking our own future up by only ever talking about disasters - past ones, current ones, and every plausible prediction of future ones - in a feedback loop with news and entertainment; we're simmering in despair, securing a doomed future by not being able to envision anything good as a society.
> measure how we've lost the optimistic future by tracking how Star Trek shows (including the post-2005 ones) got darker (literally, I'm talking about how the scenes were lit), the architecture less Hilton-like, and eventually, when carpets started to disappear.
Yes, you could do that.
Or you could just cite "Alien" (and arguably "Dark Star" before it) as the key break with "the future is bright and shiny and comfortable", long before 2005.
Alien (1979) predates ST:TNG (1987-), and as I remember it, it competed with E.T. (1982) in the popular consciousness.
Nah, dark or grim sci-fi were aplenty, many of them were just regular action movies (also popular then) but done in sci-fi setting.
I'm using Star Trek as a measuring stick, particularly TNG and later, because this was a very big, popular and long-running franchise, that happened to have baked in the idea of optimistic future for humanity as a core part of its setting. It's a measuring stick that spans almost six decades now, and you can see in it how sentiments changed over that time, and how the hope and optimism eroded.
Various dystopian shows and movies that appeared in that time, they were pessimistic by design, and thus work as spot measurements of what people thought would sell best at a particular time. Star Trek wasn't - the weight of an established franchise meant it could've kept selling optimism even as others would find it too financially risky; so Star Trek going darker measures a deeper change in the mindsets of writers and studio executives.
Dystopian and horror-oriented science fiction have existed as long as the genre.
Optimism is hard to do in a way that is both believable and interesting, which at the time TNG ran was fairly successfully achieved for a large audience.
I would argue that cynicism and fear-milking are easier paths (with certain exceptions for works which evoke multiple layered allegories and inspire contemplation), and I think this has become even more true in recent years for a host of reasons.
>Disney's Tomorrowland - not the fair, the 2015 movie
The thing about Tomorrowland is that it really digs into the viewer in that beyond just all the blaming of external forces of corporates or governments, how much did the people truly desire the future.
And it seems as people fear the future, they also want it, they desire that bleak future. Because cynicism dosen't demand anything of them. That they can sit in their chairs comfortably and continue disparging the world, even as things slowly turn worse around them like a frog boiling in a pot.
Look at the discussions here, how so many deperately seek easy theories on how the economy might fail tomorrow or how the stock market would crash. There's nobody trying to build or maintain confidence, even as when those fears would realize would be directly detetrimental to them. They blame social media, they blame the "Algorithm" even as they consciously continue to use those very media. They want things to collapse, they want the economy to burn, they want insitutions to fail even they want to close the path to the future. And the more things get worse, the more they'll double down on a path of self-destruction.
If you were poor and just trying to survive it could be understandable, but it's arguably the poor who have a more optimistic outlook. No, it's the middle class, with far more opportunities than 90% of the other world that seem hell bent on their own own annihilation. How else can you explain how the middle-class in China, in Dubai have far less opportunities and rights than in America, yet they are far more optimistic and confident in their nation and their future? Countries are built on Confidence, and replace that confidence with Cynicism and it's over.
When you see that, it's honestly not difficult to emphasize with the elites' disdain with the whole affair, and their own efforts to building their "arks" just like Governor Nix.
Star Trek TNG had a very singular kind of optimism though; it was presented as optimistic and that everything was wonderful, but if you examined it more closely it started to look kind of unappealing or even dystopian.
People still joke about the carpets on starships (including in-universe in the recent shows), but honestly, you can pretty much measure how we've lost the optimistic future by tracking how Star Trek shows (including the post-2005 ones) got darker (literally, I'm talking about how the scenes were lit), the architecture less Hilton-like, and eventually, when carpets started to disappear.
Apropos visual media, there's another example of an optimistic vision of the future, which the article also indirectly mentions: Disney's Tomorrowland - not the fair, the 2015 movie. Severely underrated, that one. I broke down in tears when I watched it (okay, I was in a vulnerable period), because it was an unexpected breath of pure optimism about progress. I mean, the movie is literally about the very thing the article talks about - it recalls the optimism of yore, presents a protagonist who's asking herself and us, where did it all go wrong, and then tackles the question directly. The answer it gives may or may not be any good[0], but at least an attempt was made to talk about it. Sadly, this is the last attempt made so far in popular media, at least as far as I know.
I'm puzzled as to why these two stories were not mentioned. They're not exactly outliers no one has heard of.
--
[0] - We're effectively fucking our own future up by only ever talking about disasters - past ones, current ones, and every plausible prediction of future ones - in a feedback loop with news and entertainment; we're simmering in despair, securing a doomed future by not being able to envision anything good as a society.