NsF (Science fiction)
May. 3rd, 2019 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vit_rScience fiction authors of the previous century were not able to "predict" future that surrounds us today because modern technologies -- small computers, interconnected world, total video surveillance -- would be considered as magics by readers who lived in the times of big computers, magnet tapes and slow connections. If we take the "problem of small steps" into consideration, we could find in the old science fiction a lot of predictions that were quite precise not in design features but in functional aspects of today devices and technologies.
Analogous correction must be made for descriptions of cultural and psychological problems.
Old science fiction authors had described the backside of progress: poisoned polluted air, gigantic machines, herds of ant-like workers controlled by computers, overpopulated cities, nature destroyed by devastating resource consumption... We do not see the signs of this predictions around us. We live in a relative clean environment in comfortable cities and we have quite painless jobs protected by trade laws. Even the homeless people on the street have a better live than was predicted for "simple citizens" in the science fiction literature.
It seems the old predictions were wrong. Unfortunately they are correct.
We must not forget the globalization effects. The whole Earth is now a big "SciFi-city". Our European world that we see and take as granted is the Intern Circle, the Zone A, the living space for privileged citizens, the upper class society, the parasitic center of capitalistic benefits...
Indeed, even the European homeless live in favor of their privileged geographic position. The polluted air, hopeless work hours, industrial capitalistic overpopulated suburbs... -- this all was exported into the third world and rising economies.
Politicians try to sell this as first signs of partial implementation of the promised technological paradise-on-Earth. Of course the dirty work is not given to robots but to humans in Asia and other cheap countries, but the politicians promise that the today economic benefits of the privileged part of humanity would be reached by nations that run behind. Unfortunately the politicians do not consider the processes of degradation of the Intern Circle that were also predicted by some science fiction authors.
The industrial production is dirty and hungry for resources but it is bound with the future. This means: the real work and the world know-how wanders from the first world countries into the countries that develop material things. The dreams follow the industries.
European children are now not excited with gigantic machinery, constructions from concrete, electric power plants... They hope to spend their life in imaginal industries, to make money with fake occupations that do not produce real quality and real things.
The questions arise: Why do the outer districts of the mega-city-Earth need this privileged zones that could only produce virtual values? Why do they need children who would not be able to apply mathematics or their own hands? Why do they need people whose dreams are fake?
Analogous correction must be made for descriptions of cultural and psychological problems.
Old science fiction authors had described the backside of progress: poisoned polluted air, gigantic machines, herds of ant-like workers controlled by computers, overpopulated cities, nature destroyed by devastating resource consumption... We do not see the signs of this predictions around us. We live in a relative clean environment in comfortable cities and we have quite painless jobs protected by trade laws. Even the homeless people on the street have a better live than was predicted for "simple citizens" in the science fiction literature.
It seems the old predictions were wrong. Unfortunately they are correct.
We must not forget the globalization effects. The whole Earth is now a big "SciFi-city". Our European world that we see and take as granted is the Intern Circle, the Zone A, the living space for privileged citizens, the upper class society, the parasitic center of capitalistic benefits...
Indeed, even the European homeless live in favor of their privileged geographic position. The polluted air, hopeless work hours, industrial capitalistic overpopulated suburbs... -- this all was exported into the third world and rising economies.
Politicians try to sell this as first signs of partial implementation of the promised technological paradise-on-Earth. Of course the dirty work is not given to robots but to humans in Asia and other cheap countries, but the politicians promise that the today economic benefits of the privileged part of humanity would be reached by nations that run behind. Unfortunately the politicians do not consider the processes of degradation of the Intern Circle that were also predicted by some science fiction authors.
The industrial production is dirty and hungry for resources but it is bound with the future. This means: the real work and the world know-how wanders from the first world countries into the countries that develop material things. The dreams follow the industries.
European children are now not excited with gigantic machinery, constructions from concrete, electric power plants... They hope to spend their life in imaginal industries, to make money with fake occupations that do not produce real quality and real things.
The questions arise: Why do the outer districts of the mega-city-Earth need this privileged zones that could only produce virtual values? Why do they need children who would not be able to apply mathematics or their own hands? Why do they need people whose dreams are fake?
no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 08:11 pm (UTC)А вопросы заданы хорошие.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 08:56 pm (UTC)В принципе, к этому прилагается дополнительная информация, но я решил сразу всё не вываливать.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 09:31 pm (UTC)Дополнительную информацию было бы интересно прочитать.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 09:50 pm (UTC)По Европе сейчас столько призраков бродит, что можно писать не просто манифесты, а толстый мистический роман, но меня сейчас только определённые темы интересуют. Сюда ставлю в основном то, что попалось по дороге, но не пригодилось.