Re-visiting a theme that is much on my mind, this January.
Here's William Gibson paraphrased:- In the 20th century, everyone spoke with reverence of the 21st, while here, deep into the 21st, the 22nd century never gets a look-in.
Where's the SciFi being produced now that describes short to medium term futures? Like say, 50-100 years hence. Because 2100 is only 85 years away or one (reasonably lucky) lifetime for somebody born today. It seems like there's a gap in the middle. Between 5 minutes in the future SciFi which is really about now and ages quickly getting overtaken by events. And far future space opera, which requires an alternate physics to make it work. The middle ground is about both imagining realistic futures but also creating narratives that help to explain where we're going. I'm convinced we need this to counter the endless dystopianism. How are we going to fix pervasive economic injustice, catastrophic climate change, rampant sexism (manifest by white guys holding forth etc.), media conglomeration, network interference, terrorism, etc.? Just describing all that is not enough. We need people to imagine some solutions.
Bruce Sterling's call to arms. Write more about the 22nd Century #22C
http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/478/Bruce-Sterling-Cory-Doctorow-Jon-page01.html#post8
Neal Stephenson's Call to arms. We need more optimistic SciFi to counter the dystopianism.
http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/book/hieroglyph/
Kevin Kelly's Call to arms. A request for 100-word descriptions of a plausible technological future in 100 years that he would like to live in.
https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c93c6
Stewart Brand's call to arms. Try and imagine a 10,000 year future for mankind.
http://longnow.org/
Jem Finer's call to arms. A 1000 year long song to listen to while it plays out. Longplayer has now been playing for 15 years 013 days 20 hours 16 minutes and 27 seconds (as I write).?
http://longplayer.org/
Meanwhile this is just so last century. King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man (BBC Sessions - 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4eRpwRJgzk
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/k/king+crimson/21st+century+schizoid+man_20078587.html
Fripp & Sinfield (& the others) were talking about You, Now.
And here's a shallow look at how 2015 was perceived by historical SciFi
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-the-year-2015-is-depicted-in-science-fiction
BTW. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/will-humankind-survive-the-century-382779971582 Erlich gives us only a 10% chance of civilisation surviving to 2100. Seems a little pessimistic to me. I think we'll manage a soft landing without regressing back to roughly AD500.