Is Sci-Fi of old even fiction anymore?
As we progress as a civilization and species, our rate of technological innovation is increasing exponentially. It’s no question that we love our tech. We love new tech and we even have a nostalgic view of older tech. Our romantic view of technology has even inflitrated our literature, creating its own well-known genre, science-fiction. Science-fiction appeals to our sense of wonder and awe as we see technology men could only dream of: flying cars, self-driving cars, hand-held and wearable computers, directed energy weaponry, long-distance space travel, teleportation, instant translation devices, and video chatting just to name a few. As our level of technological innovation increases evermore, these essential chimeras of literature are becoming more attainable than ever.
The 100 years of innovation in the 20th century have fueled that last 16 years.
Just think about what we created in the 20th century: Airplanes, rockets, computers, the internet, radio, penicillin. etc. Now compare that to what we’ve done in just the last 16 years of the 21st century: we’ve created new complex mathmatical algorithms that literally run our modern industrialised and computerized world from streaming the HD videos of cats we watch on the internet to producing the very manufactered goods we innovated in the 20th; we’ve forever changed our perception and consumption of vast amounts of data; we’ve explored vast regions of the universe using the improved rockets of the 20th century; and we crafted robotic prosthetics and artificial organs.
The 21st century non-fiction aspect of science-fiction
All the future tech I mentioned above is either already with us or in testing. For example, fictional hand-held and wearable computers are today’s smartphones and smartwatches. Smartphones also double as the long-distance communication devices seen in older sci-fi literature. Our smartphones also do video-calls, and services like Skype, allow for free long-distance video calling that just 20 years ago would have just been a pipe-dream. Self-driving cars are now recently a reality as major tech companies scrambled to test the technology while Tesla recently updated their cars over the air to enable a semi-autonomous mode where drivers can let the car drive itself. Even though this isn’t exactly like the autonomous cars where passengers can literally nap while the car drives itself to its destination, it shows that that level of innovation is closer than anyone thought.
Tech like flying cars, space travel, laser weapons, and translation devices are all being perfected as I type this and as you read. The US military government is working on energy weapons like plasma cannons, laser guns and cannons, and stun guns like those seen in Star Trek. A group of engineers are working to make flying cars a reality by 2020. There is even now a wearable translation device that can translate conversations in real time. Deep space travel is something we have been dreaming of for millennia and we have taken a huge step in making that a reality as NASA and other leading space agencies are currently testing two possible engines that would allow for a sustainable fuel source that would only require some solar energy. These engines are the EM (electromagnetic) drive and FDR (Fusion Driven Rocket). Though both are still very much in their preliminary stages and we may not see results for decades, these two competing engines have already broken our contemporary understanding and are promising. Teleportation is a whole separate monster, and by no means can we teleport objects in a conventional sense, but recently physicists teleported photons over a distance of 88 miles, which is huge and may give way to being able to transport people in the future, but still proves it to be not only possible but attainable.
Science-Fiction’s influence on technology innovation
Just as sci-fi appeals to our sense of wonder and awe, it also inspires us to achieve the potential positive futures dreamed up by writers. Innovation is, in part, affected by society and culture which in turn is also, in part, affected by science-fiction. The very scientists and innovators that are imagining and creating the technology of the future admit to sci-fi’s influence on them:
The Future’s Future
In today’s world, governments and corporations gather sci-fi writers and so-called futurists in order to help predict what technology is likely to shape our future. The reason why good science-fiction has been able to predict so many of the things we have today is because the writers are not just pulling technology out of thin air, they consider the contemporary technology and the direction society is going in order to make educated predictions about how the world of tomorrow will look today. As our current rate of innovation increases, sci-fi writers will have to dream up more impressive and mind-b0ggeling technolgoy in order to inspire the inventors of the future. Based on how well we’ve been doing and how well sci-fi writers are able to predict the future, I have high hopes for a bright, innovative, and inconceivable future. After all, it’s only a dream away.
Arthur C. Clark: “Any sufficently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
~Kash Wasti-Chief Administrative Officer, Com.Unity Rewards Co.
Related Links:
