[ExI] Is future progress moving to virtual reality?

[BillK]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> But note the lack of stories that got the explosive power of Internet right.
> Most stories with connected computers assumed they would be like a telephone
> network, not something that changes the way society is run globally.
>
> The one mentioned exception is "A Logic Named Joe", which actually does get
> it - except that the protagonist is doing a heroic job of returning it to a
> phone system. Closer to the real thing is Brunner's 1975 "The Shockwave
> Rider" that involves networked hacking and online "delphi pools" doing
> crowdsourced prediction. By the point we reach Vinge's "True Names" in 1981
> the authors can actually cheat since there are real computer networks, and
> at least Vinge had access.


By the mid 1970s ARPANET already existed and included E-mail, online
chat, and mailing lists. (popular with SF writers). So Brunner was
really expanding on what he was already using.


>
> The point is, people are used to the standard sf world within a sub-genre.
> The reason nobody needs to explain what a hyperdrive is in space opera is
> that it is part of the space opera standard. Before Cyberpunk created the
> standard cyberpunk future there were no other standard sf worlds where
> networked computers were anything but glorified mainframes or telephone
> networks: they were not assumed to have any particular impact on culture,
> economics or politics. Yes, there were stories that were exceptions, but
> they were not part of the standard setting. And it is the standard settings
> that are used as metaphors by people when thinking about the future.
>

Hmmmm. I would think that 'prediction' happens before the standard SF
setting develops, otherwise it isn't prediction. Indeed SF as a pulp
fiction genre didn't really get going until the 1930s.
SF tended to just take one idea (or gadget) and run with it, to make a
good story. The writers were not really concerned too much with how
their gadget impacts culture, economics or politics. The main
objective was to keep the story moving along and being exciting. So,
of course you rarely get full-scale future society expositions. It
slows the plot down too much.

BillK