Do You Think Science Fiction Literature, Movies , TV Series, etc have Created the Modern World As We Know it?

[Swank]

So many many things people , places and events large and small , seen and unseen ,imagine and unimagined, predicted and unforeseen create the future we end up in.

Yeah, and it's mostly really mundane.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Predicting the future is difficult without abandoning the banality of reality so you can offer the drama and adventure that is necessary for narrative entertainment.

Yes, something exciting/interesting has to happen, otherwise no-one is going to read your story. And so the future is dystopia, or with time travel, or there's hoverboards, or an alien race has conquered the planet. Like I said, we hope for hoverboards, we get socks.

 

[paranoid marvin]

So many many things people , places and events large and small , seen and unseen ,imagine and unimagined, predicted and unforeseen create the future we end up in.

I think that we ourselves the change, but other than gadgets, the world around us doesn't.

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

The 1982 flop did not cause peiple to dress differently at the time.

But the tv series "Quatermass" influenced the crusty look

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

And Luke's shorty robe and utility belt never came into style.

Such a shame!

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

But the tv series "Quatermass" influenced the crusty look

Also, "Judge Dredd" (especially with McMahon's illustration) had a real influence on some people's dress

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

Silicon Valley corporations and individual billionaire tech bros are pursuing projects that are clearly sf inspired, eg autonomous vehicles and weapons, Mars colonies, brain implants, "the Metaverse", cryptocurrency etc ad nauseam... despite most of them being pipe (bong) dreams they are having real effects in the real world. None of them good

 

[Swank]

Silicon Valley corporations and individual billionaire tech bros are pursuing projects that are clearly sf inspired, eg autonomous vehicles and weapons, Mars colonies, brain implants, "the Metaverse", cryptocurrency etc ad nauseam... despite most of them being pipe (bong) dreams they are having real effects in the real world. None of them good

Those aren't SF concepts. They came to be or would have come to be whether they were in some little read SF book or not.


Especially something as obvious as a computer chauffeur or autopilot. Just like it didn't take an SF story to replace the ice man with refrigeration. Once a technology exists, the spin offs are going to happen.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think that we ourselves the change, but other than gadgets, the world around us doesn't.

Human beings are walking probability machines because our actions and , even our non actions have an effect on the world around us.

 

[Swank]

Human beings are walking probability machines because our actions and , even our non actions have an effect on the world around us.

Like a Galton Board?

 

[paeng]

Wait a minute! Are you saying CO2 levels are rising dangerously?!

Ice core data reveal that they max out at 300, and that's been the case for more than 600,000 years. I think the last time they exceeded that was around a million years ago, when they reached 800. No one is certain about the cause, but some say it might have involved major volcanic activity; still, it's estimated that it went up at a rate of 30 ppm every one thousand years.

The problem is that it's now above 400, and it's been going up at a rate of 1 ppm a year, or fourteen times faster. I think it went above 300 during the mid-1970s, which is why the 30-year global cooling cycle (which happened during the 1910s and 1940s) stopped.

Scientists don't know what's going to happen next, but they've detected over 50 positive feedback loops (phenomena driven by a slight increase in global surface temperature anomaly but also reinforcing the warming) the past two decades, and have no idea what might happen to things like the global conveyor belt.

Meanwhile, it was only realized around a decade ago (around 2013) that oil production per capita peaked back in 1979. Most of our food, manufactured goods, and services are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

We live in very interesting times.

 

[Swank]

Ice core data reveal that they max out at 300, and that's been the case for more than 600,000 years. I think the last time they exceeded that was around a million years ago, when they reached 800. No one is certain about the cause, but some say it might have involved major volcanic activity; still, it's estimated that it went up at a rate of 30 ppm every one thousand years.

The problem is that it's now above 400, and it's been going up at a rate of 1 ppm a year, or fourteen times faster. I think it went above 300 during the mid-1970s, which is why the 30-year global cooling cycle (which happened during the 1910s and 1940s) stopped.

Scientists don't know what's going to happen next, but they've detected over 50 positive feedback loops (phenomena driven by a slight increase in global surface temperature anomaly but also reinforcing the warming) the past two decades, and have no idea what might happen to things like the global conveyor belt.

Meanwhile, it was only realized around a decade ago (around 2013) that oil production per capita peaked back in 1979. Most of our food, manufactured goods, and services are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

We live in very interesting times.

Someone should put this on the news.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I think that we ourselves the change, but other than gadgets, the world around us doesn't.

SF could have been used to promote positive change and reduce/prevent problems. I think the 1950s with C P Snow's Two Cultures is an example of the divergence. Science and technology accelerated and most of traditional culture stayed in the same old rut.

Now we have anthropogenic warming deniers saying, "climate has always changed."

We need to Vulcanize human culture. LOL

 

[paeng]

Someone should put this on the news.

I think it's been in the news for years.

I also underestimated the problem: the rate of increase is not 14 but 100 times, or around 2.4 ppm a year.

Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

In the past 60 years, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased 100 times faster than it did during the end of the last ice age.

www.climate.gov

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

Those aren't SF concepts. They came to be or would have come to be whether they were in some little read SF book or not.


Especially something as obvious as a computer chauffeur or autopilot. Just like it didn't take an SF story to replace the ice man with refrigeration. Once a technology exists, the spin offs are going to happen.

But they all (except cryptocurrencies) were in several, widely read, sf stories and novels before the technology existed.
Interesting post tho... I can't work out whether you're espousing McLuhanism or technological determinism, or perhaps suggesting that they are the same thing?

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

I think it's been in the news for years.

I also underestimated the problem: the rate of increase is not 14 but 100 times, or around 2.4 ppm a year.

Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

In the past 60 years, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased 100 times faster than it did during the end of the last ice age.

www.climate.gov

I assumed Swank was being "sarcastic"?

 

[Swank]

But they all (except cryptocurrencies) were in several, widely read, sf stories and novels before the technology existed

There is no technology for Mars colonies. The idea of colonizing foreign lands is ancient.

There is no metaverse. It is another version of remote communication, like books and letters.

The entire history of technology is the move to automate hand labor. An autonomous vehicle is the same concept and an automated loom.


It doesn't take an SF story to create the idea that new technology could be used to accomplish very old human habits of innovation.

 

[psikeyhackr]

We live in very interesting times.

The Chinese are now cursing themselves faster than the rest of us.

 

[paeng]

I assumed Swank was being "sarcastic"?

You won't believe it, but I only found out about this two months ago. All along I was looking only at the ppm level and not the rate of increase. I didn't realize that the latter was not only higher than average but accelerating.

I think the highest was 0.3 ppm a year during the warming phase of the cycle. Another article pointed out that until the 1950s it was only 0.1, and likely because we're supposed to be entering a new ice age following the natural cycle. But it's now 2.4 ppm a year, and during what should be a cooling phase.

It gets even more bewildering when one sees that in light of phenomena like global dimming:

with recent points from Beckwith and others:

 

[paeng]

About space colonies, that reminds me of two things:

- a 2006 documentary about peak oil (which I found out started much earlier, in 1979, when world oil production per capita peaked and from which we never recovered), where experts stated that we should have prepared for the problem two decades earlier, and that now it's likely too late to do so;

- a study which argues that it will take up to 130 years to fully transition into a fossil-free global economy due to lag time and other issues, but that we have much less time available to do so.

In which case, make that three things, i.e., the video game represented by my avatar.