[ExI] Media and memes, was: "Animal-monitoring modules"?

[PJ Manney]

On 9/29/07, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I read once that the xenophobic meme phase seems to coincide with
> escapist fatasy being a popular entertainment genre.  When there is
> less fear, science fiction becomes more prevalent in entertainment.
> With that in mind (without rigorous proof) I was considering the
> recent thread about responsible singularity PR.
>
> Do we think entertainment media can/should be used to prepare the
> general public to accept a higher level of technological possibility?

I've never heard about a specific correlation between Fantasy and
xenophobic memes (and I'd love to see the actual research), but if you
think about it in general, there is definitely a growth in fantasy
media during wars, depressions, etc., because people need the mental
escape.  People needed to see Good triumph over Evil.  Comic books,
movies, pulp fiction, etc. certainly reflected this in the 20th
Century.  But fantasy wasn't just relegated to the fantastical.  It
was equally about economic fantasies, like Fred & Ginger musicals,
"Cinderella" stories, etc.

We have the nerve to tell the depressing stories, of which SF is
usually a part because of its reliance on distopias as a genre, when
we're secure enough to hear them.

In many ways, it's immaterial whether media can or should be used to
prepare the public, because propagandistic intent is usually not part
of the motivation to either create or distribute mainstream Fantasy or
SF content.  The motivation is usually money!  However, media prepares
the public, regardless.  It seems to me the determining factor of its
success is how far ahead is the preparation and for what?  For
instance, SF has always inspired people to create things that don't
yet exist.  My kids love the show "How William Shatner Changed the
World" in which the irrepressible actor shows how "Star Trek" inspired
an entire generation of kids to grow up and create real versions of
the futuristic technologies they were watching.  I think the reason
Star Trek was such an effective inspiration was 1) it was in kids'
living rooms each week (or daily in syndication); 2) the stories were
fun, simple and it took little effort to link the story parallels to
the viewers' present (Vietnam/racism/etc.); and 3) it was a soothing,
Utopian vision of humanity.  We were the good guys and we'd worked
most of our speciel crap out before he hit the galaxy to force
peaceful co-existence down everyone else's throats.  It went down
easy.

But you only have to look at the history of SF to see how some stories
and writers have presaged larger trends and changes.

HOWEVER, there is quite a long lead time between the initial
publication of someone like Jules Verne and his eventual technological
vindication, so most of his futuristic ideas are acknowledge only in
retrospect.  In my opinion, it's the work of more near-term creators
that has any hope of preparing a public for a prompt change.  There's
a reason Michael Crichton has a larger and more mainstream readership
than anyone in the traditional SF pantheon.  It's because people don't
think they're reading SF.  They are reading a "techno-thriller" which
by definition employs SF, but it also has as much in common with spy
thrillers and combat stories as SF.  He writes character-based
adventures and the world he describes is here and now, except with
genetically-engineered
dinosaurs/nano-swarms/cyborgs/fill-in-the-technological-boogieman-blank.

Of course, many could say that's nonsense.  A single technology does
not exist in a vacuum and the advance of technology across the board
would make the story, by definition, anachronistic and impossible.
But that's not what attracts readers.  They want to know about now.
Not decades hence.  Otherwise, it has no relevance and no immediacy.
That means fewer eyeballs, either on screens or on the page.  And that
makes preparing the public, who won't know about your ideas if they
haven't seen/heard/read them, much harder.

I know I've said this all before, but there it is.  Again.

PJ