Back in March Kellyanne Conway got herself beat up pretty bad by by uttering something along those lines. Our national media, which seemed to prefer a known criminal to an asshole, wasted no time monkey piling on top of that phrase. In truth, I’m somewhat impressed with Kellyanne Conway. No matter how many times she is drawn into rapid fire interviews where the interviewer clearly is not a journalist, but a hatchet with an objective and eventually succumbs to a brain fart, she takes the beating and shows up for work the next day. Most humans subjected to that would try to draw unemployment until they could find a better job.
Some time earlier this year I was listening to some call in show on an NPR station where they had someone using many metrics off the top of their head to state the downward spiral of humanity or some such. He spouted one stat which I don’t remember about the massive increase in Dystopian fiction vs. futurist fiction. I remember hearing that defense and it stuck with me. In part it stuck with me because, while I did not doubt the numbers, I doubted the conclusion he made from them. Even I have written Dystopian fiction with “Infinite Exposure” and “John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars.” The trend in media has become so popular even Wired magazine has jumped onto the bandwagon. Yet, the spouters of the stats tend to overlook the time frame they classify having a greater amount of futurist science fiction also produced “1984” and few people able to read this post can doubt we are living in “1984” now.
I will posit here 2 reasons for the increase in Dystopian fiction and its massive increase in sales:
- We just happen to know about most of the bad stuff now.
- Futurists get shredded in the press.
The Internet brought with it immense evil. To put it in Garden of Eden terms, it was the fruit we were told never to eat. With the evil came the 24×7 spewing of a token few facts scattered within the relentless surf of fake news. Traditional media outlets have stopped verifying stories, instead choosing to prefix each questionable thing with “It’s being reported by . . .” just so they can air it first and keep the eyeballs on their advertising. Even CNN has had to admit to airing fake news.
During the time frame Futurist science fiction way out published Dystopian, we had a newspaper and a radio station. Both had limited reach when it came to what they could cover. Eventually we got the AP Newswire so all of these local papers and radio stations could afford to cover national and international stories. Journalism was served because the stories were vetted well before being offered to the average Joe. Still, there was limited reach and we simply didn’t know about a lot of things.
Ignorance is bliss.
Too many people believe journalistic standards of old still apply, yet nothing could be further from the truth. When some new site claims to be a news organization of some kind subconsciously we believe the story to have been vetted, even when it is totally fake.
In short, humans have a dimmer view of the world because now they have seen more of it. The fact it always was a septic tank doesn’t enter into the logic.
As to point 2, today’s media companies get paid to run things down, not build them up. If you try to be a Futurist today looking out 50-100 years, you get shredded. If you aren’t some job killing Silicon Valley malignant tumor like Amazon, they will destroy you, even if not paid to, simply because it’s their culture now.
The bulk of the human population still wants Futurists, but, nobody is willing to throw those dice. If you doubt for one minute the general population isn’t starving for good Futurist work, just take a look at the numbers for the “Star Trek” franchise reboot. While you are at it rent “How William Shatner Change the World” to learn just how much of the Star Trek universe we actually have because of the original series.
God forbid you are a futurist who is just a few years early! Just look at what they did to Kellyanne Conway over the microwave comment. In 2008 Whirlpool introduced a refrigerator with a built in tablet computer. Most tablet and 2-in-1 computers today have 2 cameras. One facing each direction so you can use them for both taking pictures and video conferencing. Just how long do you think it will be until microwave manufacturers will get tired of selling sub $50 ovens with a traditional keypad, replacing them with a touch screen capable of video conferencing so parents can video chat into a college dorm room while their kid does homework on their laptop?
If it is a computer on the Internet with a cheap/free PC based OS, it can be hacked. Once hacked they can turn on your camera and microphone whenever they wish to snoop.
In this particular instance, what Kellyanne said was not an alt-fact or some other form a spin, it was a future truth. I work in IT. I’ve worked on several embedded systems, some of which are even used to save lives in a hospital. I know in my soul just as soon as the refrigerator with a built in tablet starts selling well, we are going to get a video conferencing capable tablet in a microwave and possibly even a toaster. Any appliance which is traditionally table/counter top or higher in the kitchen. I’m actually betting a toaster with a tablet which tilts for easy use will happen first simply because people have really cut back on bread consumption and that would help boost it.