Does Sci-Fi make you impatient with technology's/society's progress?

ixoy · 25-10-2008 7:00pm #1

Anyone else think things in the world of technology and socially seem to move a lot slower after seeing the worlds envisaged in science fiction books and movies?

Where for example are our cybernetic implants? Screw Google - I want to be able to send a virtual copy of myself to scout out the 'net and upload the results to my own neural interface... and yet there's not a sign of it. While people go "ohhh" at Google's latest search support feature, the world of cyberpunk et al. has made me long for something much harder and interesting, to envisage a world in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" or Gibson's "Neuromancer".

Or what about our space exploration? Anyone passingly familiar with Arthur C. Clarke's work would see how he envisaged us being far further ahead than we are today. We've not been to the moon in decades, and there's no sign of us terraforming Mars in any near future, more the pity for Kim Stanley Robinson and others. The small outputs from Nasa's exploring rovers seem dull next to what sci-fi brought us with alien races (countless), pyramids on mars, and even alien Gods living on its moons.

And where are the aliens? SETI is the most interesting thing we get, and that just often back-doors on people's PC to send out small tidbits into the vacuum of space. How vapid almost next to the coloured world that sci-fi brings us when they come to us. Whether they're pod creatures, Daleks, little green/grey men, energy beings, or any of the other countless varieties, we've yet to even get an interesting bit of bacteria.
Hell, why can't we even have some of the interesting left overs that sci-fi has brought us: obelisks on the moon, giant asteroids hovering earth tunnelled through with a twist in space/time, pyramids that act as space ships, or even instructions on how to build a machine to initiate first contact? Nada, zip instead. Will the Fermi paradox never be resolved?

Or even culturally and socially, we've yet to see the interesting worlds sci-fi has brought us. No sign of the cultural meld of the Federation. No sign yet of the future hegemonies of power in the East that Richard Morgan plumps for. No sign of anarchic instability in the U.S. or Europe in many other works. No real change in people's attitudes or reactions to technologies that's really changed stuff. We're all still going on mainly about the same things, the same interests without having had anything to radically alter our world.

Science fiction, by its nature, seeks to explore the great "What ifs?", backed by some degree or other of scientific plausibility. However, I've found that in pushing my mind out to seek those answers, it can be almost frustrating at times to see how the real world crawls by and rarely gets to deliver these answers and, when it does, always on a smaller scale than the ones dreamt up by writers.

Anyone else just wish then it would all speed up and give us more of these dreams of science fiction?

nyarlothothep · 25-10-2008 8:33pm

Science fiction though has only really existed as a genre as we know it since the 19th century. Thats only around 200 years of development. A drop in the ocean. Science didn't really get going until 16/17th centuries right? (Yes the Greeks made advances and there were logicians and astronomers in the middle ages but wasn't it in does centuries that it became institutionalized as a discipline?) So we've been unfortunate enough to be born in the wrong timeframe. Fast forward 500 years and then we'll cool sci fi goodies.

We even have some now, like big dog and fully 3d holograms. People from 30-50 years ago would be impressed, possibly amazed depending on their imagination. But simply speaking I've come to the conclusion that despite all our science etc we are just on the very low rung of the ladder as regards sentient species. So we may need to upgrade our brains and refine our sensibilities (this means eradicating stupid things like herd psychosis, greediness etc) before we even remotely crack anything like the ftl barrier and become a unified species.

In conclusion though, I believe we have progressed radically in certain areas like computers and genetics. There is a lot of focused effort going on there. For example, Star Trek TOS, warp drive ships but really sh1tty computers (compared to now) as predicted from that standpoint in history.

Scientific developments are proceeding at a rate that could only be described as sprinting. We may hit a brick wall but so far its been getting faster and faster. But yar, I feel the same kind of frustration, its a luck of the draw in a weird metaphysical sense.

Dades · 29-10-2008 12:40pm

While science has come on in leaps and bounds, I feel it is the humanity of so much science fiction that has yet to live up to it's promise. In so many novels humans have gotten beyond petty, xenophobic squabbling, and instead are faced with dangers or challenges not of their own making. It may be a symptom of greater media coverage, but sometimes it seems that as a species we are regressing.

That said, I'd imagine most writers of the first half of the 20th century would have imagined the internal combustion engine as redundant. Likewise I find it bemusing that we haven't successfully harnessed the unlimited clean energy this planet offers.

ixoy · 01-11-2008 2:31pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

We even have some now, like big dog and fully 3d holograms. People from 30-50 years ago would be impressed, possibly amazed depending on their imagination.

Well there's truth to that and indeed at times there's less of an ability to awe with science. We find it laughable that people would faint at an oncoming train on a cinema screen now and I don't think even a 3D hologram would elicit such a reaction today, except in a child. Maybe we're immune to such smaller progressions - they possess a "wow" factor but never seem like the science that works on a grander scale. Where some see 3D holograms, I'm looking for the immersive VR of "Otherland" or a holo-deck.

But simply speaking I've come to the conclusion that despite all our science etc we are just on the very low rung of the ladder as regards sentient species. So we may need to upgrade our brains and refine our sensibilities (this means eradicating stupid things like herd psychosis, greediness etc) before we even remotely crack anything like the ftl barrier and become a unified species.

Dades wrote: »

While science has come on in leaps and bounds, I feel it is the humanity of so much science fiction that has yet to live up to it's promise. In so many novels humans have gotten beyond petty, xenophobic squabbling, and instead are faced with dangers or challenges not of their own making. It may be a symptom of greater media coverage, but sometimes it seems that as a species we are regressing.

Yes science fiction often takes great hope in humanity's ability to overcome their own pettty squabblings and look up and out, not down and in. It seems we're far too consumed with our own daily petty grudges and meanderings that we won't be able to unite to crack the bigger mysteries and possibilities.

Now maybe it is a tad unfair - the LHC is a good example of nations uniting in the goal of pursuing something bigger and to answer big questions. But for the LHC, there's a thousand wars. It might be one for humanities, but have we progressed as a species? If we look at the Western world, we're not many decades out from the most destructive wars of all time, and we just emerged from the shadow of the Cold War and may yet enter it again. Even on a micro-scale, many of us are consumed with petty squabbles and disputes over inconsequential things. The bigger picture is often impossible to see. I'm very gloomy that we can instantiate a global shift in viewpoint. For example religion is very often absent in future sci-fi. Given its hold these days, could we ever see a future where humanity has put it aside to a degree envisaged by Star Trek? Or will it always have its influence?

In conclusion though, I believe we have progressed radically in certain areas like computers and genetics. There is a lot of focused effort going on there. For example, Star Trek TOS, warp drive ships but really sh1tty computers (compared to now) as predicted from that standpoint in history.

True - computers have often progressed a lot faster than science fiction gave us. Reading through Arthur C. Clarke's short stories, he never seemed to foretell the concept of computers shrinking down below mm size. Even if they did, the many uses of computers in every item weren't pictured. This only came about after the fact, in novels primarily from the '90s onwards. Now I'm looking for the novels of the '00s+ to come about, with nanites crossing the genetic/computer bridge and repairing all our diseases. That development is still at an early stage, too early for me. I want my cells repaired and a look towards immortality or at least an extended lifespan or a clone to map my brain to.

It is very often easy to sort of pick and chose the bits of sci-fi. I might on one hand ignore the fact that many novels did see a united future but only after a cataclysmic third world war. We conquered space, but on computers that could be beaten by my mobile phone. And yet still there's the gnawing sensation that we could have so much more, be so much more and that is in part the gift and curse I think of being a science fiction fan.

Dades · 03-11-2008 2:16pm

ixoy wrote: »

Yes science fiction often takes great hope in humanity's ability to overcome their own pettty squabblings and look up and out, not down and in. It seems we're far too consumed with our own daily petty grudges and meanderings that we won't be able to unite to crack the bigger mysteries and possibilities.

Now maybe it is a tad unfair - the LHC is a good example of nations uniting in the goal of pursuing something bigger and to answer big questions. But for the LHC, there's a thousand wars. It might be one for humanities, but have we progressed as a species? If we look at the Western world, we're not many decades out from the most destructive wars of all time, and we just emerged from the shadow of the Cold War and may yet enter it again. Even on a micro-scale, many of us are consumed with petty squabbles and disputes over inconsequential things. The bigger picture is often impossible to see. I'm very gloomy that we can instantiate a global shift in viewpoint. For example religion is very often absent in future sci-fi. Given its hold these days, could we ever see a future where humanity has put it aside to a degree envisaged by Star Trek? Or will it always have its influence?

I think the what is suggested by SF, and backed up by history is that when world economics and the class divide have been 'addressed', humanity is less inclined to be so insular.

The societies portrayed as war-free, or indeed religiously androgynous, are those that have developed a world where nobody need die of hunger. That (in theory) results in a population that is educated and informed of the 'bigger picture' - that is - aware of more than what simply happens in their own village/region etc. So in effect, education and prosperity lead to a global society so self aware that such conflicts as we see today are seen as an embarrassing form of 'teenage angst' in worlds history!

Humanitarian aid can only do so much in the face of natural forces and population growth. What the 3rd (and 2nd) world require are sustainable energy/food sources, and this requires technology. So whatever dark ages we need to drag ourselves out of will require serious future technology to do it.

Who knows, maybe the LHC will throw us a bone.

nyarlothothep · 03-11-2008 9:51pm

Two things I'm really impatient with are

FTL (although its been around a century since the plane)
Rejuvenation treatment

Also the continued prevalence of diseases is a bit primitive imo. I'm fairly optimistic we will weed them out through genetics in the next 200 years. It's funny thinking about someone 200 years from now randomly stumbling on this thread and reading it.

Gearheart · 25-08-2011 9:24am

Im a big warhammer 40k fan so in ways we are more advanced than the people in the books I read, technologically though they are far superior to us as they have warp travel (FTL) and many other advancements. But there society is very backward, even in the adaptus mechanicus who are in charge of technology within the Imperium.