The Future!

While doing some internet research on writing contests I came across this interesting time capsule over at Writers of the Future. If you are a writer of speculative fiction or graphic artist, check out the contest. It looks legit—no entry fee, quarterly contests, known judges.

 In 1987 sci-fi writers were asked to speculate (as they’re wont) what the world would be like in 25 years. We often see pieces like this around the new year. (The LA Times ran this just a few weeks ago.)

The predictions are fun to read, some right (reading books on computers, the decline of American Imperialism, at least economically), most wrong (moon bases! millennial cults! Dow at 8400!). Each writer shows a bit of his bias in his prediction, that is, what he writes about will probably come true.

I find two things interesting about stuff like this. The first is the time itself. The capsule was organized in 1987, two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and Russian Communism. I would have to assume that the Cold War was one of the main cultural influences on the writers participating in the capsule. The Cold War fuels the races both Space and Nuclear, both of which are prime idea incubators for the writers of science fiction. Gene Wolfe predicts the Cold War is still being fought in 2012, but little else is mentioned by the other writers, nothing about its continuation or end, though many start their predictions with "If a nuclear war hasn't wiped us out, then...."

Also present in their predictions is influence of the Cyberpunk genre that was at its apex in the 1980s. Japan has taken over for the US in the roll of world economic power. Sheldon Glashow predicted that many automobiles would be built in America by Japanese-owned companies, which has come to pass. Nano tech is prevalent. Computers are primary tools in all facets of life.

Also in 1987 the writers find themselves at the end of the Regan presidency, a period, looking back, we can label as the end of American Exceptionalism. (Children born at this time, so-called millennials, will be the first generation in many not to expect a better life than that of their parents.)  Asimov blames a world population of 10 billion on Regan. One writer apologizes for the world they’re leaving us, and hopes that computers will liberate us from the debts left for us to pay.

There’s a wide range of speculation on how the world will behave politically in 2012. After Asimov, the most famous writer on the panel is Orson Scott Card, who predicts the world will be in a state of chaos akin to Europe after the fall of Rome. He must have been thinking of the Ender sequels even then, because this is the world he describes in Ender’s Shadow, one where the peace on Earth is maintained only because of the threat from extraterrestrials. Once the war in space is over, old fears and alliances reform on earth and war breaks out.

On the other end of the spectrum some of the writers optimistically predict a world at peace where automation in manufacturing, the office, and at home has led to a quasi-Jetsonian future where we spend most of our time in a state of leisure. They fail to see that the benefactors of such automation would be the capitalists that produce the products, and not a middle class freed from the burden of work.  Frederik Pohl somewhat ironically posits that the world’s problems must have been solved in order for anyone to be alive in 2012 to read the capsule’s contents, because the world’s problems seemed so drastic that to leave them unsolved meant man’s destruction.

The other thing I find interesting about the predictions is that each highlights the given writers’ fears. The largest fear for the writers, and the world at the time, is AIDS. One writer predicts millions of new cases each year. Another fears an airborne mutation. Wolfe predicts that sex will be limited to contractual marriage due to fears caused by “two great plagues,” neither of which is not AIDS, he explains, but I feel the speculation drawn into this scenario is informed by the fear of AIDS at the time. It’s easy to forget the fear we felt at the time, as AIDS isn’t much mentioned anymore outside of Africa and the third world. For me, AIDS was this strange boogey man whose causes, transference, and affliction, were left mainly unexplained to a seven-year-old.

The other fear that these writers exhibit is a fear many writers may have, the fear of not being read. This isn’t to say that they were worried about being forgotten, though deep down this fear most certainly nags at many writers in their darkest thoughts. No, this fear is manifested in the decline of literacy the world will experience over the next 25 years.  Again, Gene Wolfe believes Americans will be considered literate knowing only “a few hundred common words.” He optimistically continues this line of thinking, predicting that the literate class will then be the ones in power, holding positions in government, creating a “literate class” whose goal is to gain more power by further limiting literacy. I want to say this has come partly true, seeing in the classroom the low levels of comprehension students come into college with, that reading is no longer privileged in our daily lives, that we are a computer game, texting snap chat nation, but then again, that might be a “Kids these Days!” type of response on my end.

So what might we say about the next 25 years? I fear to even venture a guess. The writers in the capsule make no mention of the internet or anything about smartphone technology (the former was in existence in 1987 in its nascent form, the latter no one could have seen coming—try convincing someone in the 80s that all the knowledge of the world was accessible by a wireless phone you kept in your pocket, that almost every book could be read on it, every movie streamed, and you used it primarily for games based on arranging candy on a grid and harvesting virtual produce on a virtual farm). At least they didn’t say anything about flying cars. So what could we see in 2038? Water wars? Wars over minerals and natural gas? Maybe. A separation of money and politics? Not likely. I think we can say income inequality will continue to grow. What this leads to is harder to predict. The most hopeful outcome would be a restructuring of economic and political policies, the most drastic all-out cultural revolution. What about cerebral implants that allow us connect directly to the internet? Think of the advertising potential! Will this blog still be read and updated? One can only hope.