Dec 14, 2015 06:03 AM
http://www.npr.org/2015/12/13/459392474/...s-get-real
EXCERPT: [...] "All science fiction and fantasy is to some extent an exercise in world-building," [Neal] Stephenson says. "Seveneves" [his novel] comes at a time when there've been no human space missions for decades - at least not beyond the International Space Station. He believes we've largely lost the will to pursue the really big projects of previous generations like the massive government initiatives that sent people to the moon and built the interstate highway system. He says the tech industry didn't help matters when it became so lucrative and attractive to young people with technical savvy.
"And so for the last few decades, the kinds of really smart geeks who in the '50s and '60s would've been building rockets or something have been moving to Silicon Valley and creating start-ups to make little apps," he says. There's an underlying problem, he adds: We often have trouble imagining what a positive future would look like. And here's where science fiction comes in. If we want a better future, maybe we need better stories. What we don't need, he says, are more dystopian stories of civilization in ruins. "It's just tired. They take the stuff that we have now — the buildings, the cities, the vehicles — and they kind of throw dirt on them and beat them up and break the windows. And then that's the future in which these things are all set."
By contrast, the science fiction writers who've tried to imagine plausible scenarios for getting to another planet tend to be hopeful about the future.....
EXCERPT: [...] "All science fiction and fantasy is to some extent an exercise in world-building," [Neal] Stephenson says. "Seveneves" [his novel] comes at a time when there've been no human space missions for decades - at least not beyond the International Space Station. He believes we've largely lost the will to pursue the really big projects of previous generations like the massive government initiatives that sent people to the moon and built the interstate highway system. He says the tech industry didn't help matters when it became so lucrative and attractive to young people with technical savvy.
"And so for the last few decades, the kinds of really smart geeks who in the '50s and '60s would've been building rockets or something have been moving to Silicon Valley and creating start-ups to make little apps," he says. There's an underlying problem, he adds: We often have trouble imagining what a positive future would look like. And here's where science fiction comes in. If we want a better future, maybe we need better stories. What we don't need, he says, are more dystopian stories of civilization in ruins. "It's just tired. They take the stuff that we have now — the buildings, the cities, the vehicles — and they kind of throw dirt on them and beat them up and break the windows. And then that's the future in which these things are all set."
By contrast, the science fiction writers who've tried to imagine plausible scenarios for getting to another planet tend to be hopeful about the future.....
