it’s always been a curious fact to me
that the most successful science fiction
storytelling involves a completely
dystopic scenarios or finales and all
essentially all of them now maybe at the
end they give you some glimmer of hope
but something bad really happened during
the story and I have mixed feelings
about this in the following way I think
essentially every dystopic projection of
the way technology takes us because it’s
always technology gone bad always if
it’s a science fiction film so-so
I have never seen technology go as bad
as has been projected for it in the
science fiction stories maybe it hasn’t
gone that bad because the very story
that describes how bad it goes is what
alerts us to that possibility and then
we prevent it in the first place
I will allow that possibility all right
I think what’s more likely is that
people take a new technology and then
they project it forward without any
checks and balances in between the birth
of the technology and the complete
dystopic expression of that technology
they’re forgetting that in between
people are making other decisions
oh no let’s not have it continue this
way because that’s dangerous let’s
continue it this way we make these
mid-course Corrections all the time all
the time if you did this back in the
dawn of spaceflight you’d think half of
anyone who got in a plane would die any
time it took off no we may plane safer
we made safer planes if you were at the
beginning of the dawn of the nuclear era
you’d say little whole world is gonna
end in a nuclear explosion okay so we
need wise leaders and wise international
agreements and you say no that’s not
gonna happen
if we do use nuclear powers for energy
and not for war all right so yes you
need some wise some wise shepherding of
Technology as you go along but often
the storytelling ignores the mid-course
Corrections that we put into place all
the time and so I’m believe it or not I
have confidence enough confidence in our
species to think that we will never
allow society to crumble in all the ways
that science fiction dystopic
storytellers make it happen
that the most successful science fiction
storytelling involves a completely
dystopic scenarios or finales and all
essentially all of them now maybe at the
end they give you some glimmer of hope
but something bad really happened during
the story and I have mixed feelings
about this in the following way I think
essentially every dystopic projection of
the way technology takes us because it’s
always technology gone bad always if
it’s a science fiction film so-so
I have never seen technology go as bad
as has been projected for it in the
science fiction stories maybe it hasn’t
gone that bad because the very story
that describes how bad it goes is what
alerts us to that possibility and then
we prevent it in the first place
I will allow that possibility all right
I think what’s more likely is that
people take a new technology and then
they project it forward without any
checks and balances in between the birth
of the technology and the complete
dystopic expression of that technology
they’re forgetting that in between
people are making other decisions
oh no let’s not have it continue this
way because that’s dangerous let’s
continue it this way we make these
mid-course Corrections all the time all
the time if you did this back in the
dawn of spaceflight you’d think half of
anyone who got in a plane would die any
time it took off no we may plane safer
we made safer planes if you were at the
beginning of the dawn of the nuclear era
you’d say little whole world is gonna
end in a nuclear explosion okay so we
need wise leaders and wise international
agreements and you say no that’s not
gonna happen
if we do use nuclear powers for energy
and not for war all right so yes you
need some wise some wise shepherding of
Technology as you go along but often
the storytelling ignores the mid-course
Corrections that we put into place all
the time and so I’m believe it or not I
have confidence enough confidence in our
species to think that we will never
allow society to crumble in all the ways
that science fiction dystopic
storytellers make it happen
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