alt Hacker NewsMy theory about this aligns with my theory about the disappearance of ‘futurists’ from the popular conversation - we’re living in science fiction. The future is arriving every day. It no longer feels necessary to speculate about a changed world - you need only look out the door.
I say this as someone that still loves (and writes a little) speculative fiction. Just a guess as to what’s happening.
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Futurist Michio Kaku once gave a talk at my company five years ago and though I forgot the details, I remember the audience found his vision quite dystopian.
The 20th century was a period of wild change. Someone born before the first powered airplane flight in their lifetime could have flown on a jet plane to Europe and watched the first moon landing live on TV.
Vaccines put an end to endemic diseases which killed so many children every year. The birth control pill catalyzed the sexual revolution. We had a treatment for diabetes, which was once a death sentence.
The 1950s and onward saw huge changes in how businesses are organized due to computerization. In the US, cheap automobiles, cheap gas, the federal highway system, and subsidies transformed how most people live, including white flight into suburbia.
Plastic was a wonder material. Materials like nylon and polyester transformed the clothing industry.
9/11 was the turning point. We'd been fed a future "in the year 2000." When we got there, that future turned into a nostalgic vision of the past.
It's still possible to imagine new bright futures, but that kind of imagination is very much against a cultural tide that's fervently regressive and nostalgic.