Sci-Fi and Innovation

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Andrew Russell <arussell () arussell org>
> Subject: Sci-Fi and Innovation
> Date: October 7, 2018 22:01:28 JST
> To: dave () farber net
>
> Dave - I thought you & the list might be interested in this spirited essay at Fast Company by Lee Vinsel. 
>
> ———————-
> Recently, I’ve heard several people suggest that a lack-of-positive-futures, or optimistic visions of tomorrow, have 
> hampered advances in science and technology and society. This idea builds on well-known gripes about supposed 
> deficits in recent technological progress. As billionaire vampire Peter Thiel put it, “We wanted flying cars, instead 
> we got 140 characters.”
>
> The concept—call it the lack-of-positive-futures hypothesis—suggests that one reason technology hasn’t improved is 
> that we have become too pessimistic, that we have been watching too much apocalyptic 
> zombies-slash-climate-change-destroy-the-world porno, that we are strapped for optimistic scenarios, which we could 
> use to build a better world.
>
> Problems with the lack-of-positive-futures hypothesis became clear to me when I heard someone describe the founding 
> of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University (ASU). The story went like this 
> <https://worldpolicy.org/2011/09/27/innovation-starvation/>: One day, science fiction author Neal Stephenson gave a 
> talk at a conference called Future Tense. Stephenson was complaining about how – when compared to things like the 
> Apollo Program of the 1960s and 1970s – we have become a people who fail, in his words, to “Get Big Stuff Done.” 
> Another speaker, ASU president Michael Crow told Stephenson, “You’re the ones who’ve been slacking off!”
>
> In other words, the bottleneck in technological progress is science fiction writers.
>
> And, thus, in 2011, began the Center for Science and the Imagination  <https://csi.asu.edu/>(CSI). 
>
> (snip)
>
>
> https://amp.fastcompany.com/90247038/sorry-but-we-cant-fantasize-our-way-out-of-this-mess 
> <https://amp.fastcompany.com/90247038/sorry-but-we-cant-fantasize-our-way-out-of-this-mess?__twitter_impression=true>




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