Wrote this on burundi, in the SF topic (which is mostly mine, I started a few months ago by writing a short retell, inventory, is/isn't SF and some critique, paying no heed to names. The material I went over was the Nebula awarded stories from 1966-1980 or so, but the collection I downloaded was very sparse so I soon switched to Dozois's anthologies from the start to 2014 (which took me until 2018 to complete; in may 2018, when I'm writing this, I still have the last two to cover).
Meanwhile, while I was switching, there was a discussion on how future is getting cancelled. Here's my take on it:
There's something in what that guy writes. New, even if it emerges, is not recognized and surely is not sold. So as new, all kinds of recycle and recombination are sold, because only what is sold is produced.
Which somehow reflects the technology. Even that hoverboard (lebdaska?) is not a technological breakthrough of any kind, it's a fine patchwork of existing technology, design, packaging. And it's sold exactly on that nostalgy towards the future we once had.
When I look at what I use every day, it's quite a hodgepodge. I just rolled a cigarette just as they did hundred and change years; with LED lights, optical mouse, eight core processor and heating fueled by... coal (though lots of people switched to wood, but now every other house has a chainsaw). Streets are roamed by rather silent cars, now greatly with gas pedal not mechanically connected to the engine, on the asphalt which changed by almost nothing in my lifetime. The phone has turned from a respected official apparatus into a pocket computer doing lots of things and making phone calls too, and behold, in the village there's barely anyone on the streets and it's now that everyone knows everything even faster than before. Teflon has been invented long ago and we still suffer sticking pans.
I saw planks made of recycled plastics, hear me saw, sat on a terrace made of those. Then and never again, didn't take.
Among the rare things from that promised future, which really came true (and through) and exceeded expectation, is video chat. True, they promised that a hundred times, ever since Odyssey 2001 (but then it was still in diapers), and it came real only when internet got fast enough, around 2008 (though I had the little camera back in 2003 but to no purpose). To differ from SF predictions, it costs close to nothing, but there is no directory, no special installation, it uses the same wire like everything else and there's also no all-encompassing system (apart from internet itself) - if I want to talk with someone, I can hardly find him if we haven't met already. Phone book is gradually vanishing, people are quitting landlines and keep only mobiles, where there's no phone book, and for video chat there is no common standard, so it depends on what you use. Who's on skype doesn't see who's on the Gugao (and there must be more of them). And every time when someone finds out how these operate and makes something that would connect them (e.g. Trillian), they change protocol because of exactly that. That was not predicted.
In such a mixed up environment, where the realization of the promised future doesn't depend as much on science or technology but on the inner politics of this capitalism, I am not wondering why the art doesn't make any larger step-outs. Or, even if it does, why nobody hears about it.
17-VIII-2018 - 30-VI-2024