Solve for X: Neal Stephenson on getting big stuff done

Solve for X is a forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork. http://www.wesolveforx.com G+: http://goo.gl/T3qQo

For thousands of years the imagination of storytellers has been a guiding light for people trying to change the world. In the last decade or two science fiction has almost fallen behind the work of technologists and entrepreneurs. For the sake of a more interesting tomorrow, we need to get the proverbial horse back out in front of the cart with our imagination professionals building a vision of the future to inspire the builders of the new world.

Neal Stephenson is the author of the three-volume historical epic "The Baroque Cycle" (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) and the novels Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac.

www.wesolveforx.com

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Dan Bloom]

graeme mcmillan in portland said all those quotes below

[Dan Bloom]

That’s the edge that downbeat science fiction has over the more

hopeful alternative. It’s easier to imagine a world where things go

wrong, rather than right, and to believe in a future where we manage

to screw it all up.

Such pessimism and fascination with future dystopias really took hold

of mainstream sci-fi in the 1970s and ’80s, as pop culture found

itself struggling with general disillusionment as a whole.

[Dan Bloom]

The zenith of such optimistic science fiction was perhaps the original

Star Trek, which presented a vision of humanity that had transcended

societal ills like racism and bigotry, resorting to violence only when

the situation called for it. .Such strong belief in the ability of humanity to

overcome its worst impulses continued all the way through the 1980s

revival, Next Generation, with almost off-puttingly

perfect crew demonstrating how boring life could be without outside

stimulus.

[Dan Bloom]

There WAS a stretch of time — from the early 20th C through the

beginning of comic books — when science fiction was an exercise in

optimism and what is these days referred to as a “can-do” attitude.

There appeared to be no problem that couldn’t be dealt with either by

the one-two punch of positive thinking and, well, punching— or by

intellect and inspiration: new inventions were dreamed up that

automated everyday tasks and made the impossible not only possible but

also commonplace.

[Dan Bloom]

The problem is, science fiction seems to have become stuck in a rut of

hopelessness. It’s difficult to remember the last mainstream

science-fiction project that didn’t include at heavy dollop of

cynicism and surrender at its core, and that strikes me as a failure

of the genre as a whole.

Science fiction is all about imagining the

new and unimaginable, surely. If we can’t imagine a world that isn’t a

mess because of what we’ve done, shouldn’t we try harder?

[Dan Bloom]

thanks for the heads up, bruce

[redLeafU]

"what is going on in the financial and management worlds, that has caused us to narrow our scope and reduced our ambitions so drastically".. hmm, remember that book you wrote long time ago?.. methinks it was called snow crash

[FuckngBastard]

Look at About dot com's inventors timelines to see just how trivial the inventions made during the last 30 years are compared to any 30 year period going back to the 1860's.

Read it and weep.

[FuckngBastard]

NASA since 1958 has gotten 1/20th of what Medicaid, food stamps and the like have gotten since 1964. There's still poor people, though they certainly have become fatter.

[FuckngBastard]

To be clear, total US means-tested welfare costs since 1964 equal three times what the US has spent on all of its wars.