Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#41

Post by mojuba » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:19 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

mojuba wrote: post #5

Honestly, I don't get what the article is about. Was probably expecting something deeper, e.g. why our vision of the future is always so wrong and dull and not only in terms of cultural changes. Take any prediction from the 1960s for example and there will be a lot of food for ridicule. A self driving car in the year 2000 (well, ok so far), going at 500mph and the passenger reading a newspaper in the meantime. Can it…

I dunno, I'd could see myself reading a newspaper in that situation... probably on my tablet, but you never know. Pretty decent UI with tactile feedback, high-contrast display, lightweight, disposable.

Yep, with the only thing seriously missing being search.

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#42

Post by ideonexus » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

cstross wrote: post #29

SRasch wrote: post #15

I feel that the author bases the hypothesis on what journalists say sci-fi predicts (flying cars) not what they actually predict. Most sci-fi deals with pretty radical views of culture in the future. Look no further than Banks' Culture-series, which deals a lot with the power-structures, norms and rules of a post-scarcity society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series In one aspect futurism often looks like an…

Planet Earth calling: science fiction is not a predictive medium . It's a literary form -- a subcategory of fiction. Yes, some works of SF are set in a plausibly-imagined future. Yes, some of these works may make projections/extrapolations about technologies around us. But the authors are writing in the social context of the present, and what they write about reflects the present day's concerns and perspectives, unle…

Ah! I recognize you! I consider "Accelerando" futurist/transhumanist cannon. Thank you for such a wonderful book!

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#43

Post by stillsut » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #32

m0v_eax wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unnecessary generalizations..

Unnecessary? This is not a novel suggestion about the problems with futurists. It may be a generalisation, but it's pretty accurate generally. People privileged in some way aren't going to think much about that privilege. The rich won't envision a future with less (or more) poverty.

Check out "The Other Foot" [0] by Ray Bradbury.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_Man

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#44

Post by drumdance » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

ManFromUranus wrote: post #40

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #24

One problem is what demographics futurists tend to be. White men are less likely to imagine a future with full gender equality and black liberation than black women are, I would imagine. People living in the West will think less about the rise of the rest of the world.

Why don't more non-white people become futurists then? Why don't they write their own stuff? If white people do something why is there the implication that they are simultaneously suppressing that output from everybody else? You know why you don't find more black futurists? My guess is they spend their time on anti-white rhetoric, and hypothesizing about fictional oppression. Frankly speaking, black people in the wes…

This is a non-sequitur. The point is not "they should get their own futurists." It's that one particular perspective is often wrong.

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#45

Post by caskance » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

ManFromUranus wrote: post #40

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #24

One problem is what demographics futurists tend to be. White men are less likely to imagine a future with full gender equality and black liberation than black women are, I would imagine. People living in the West will think less about the rise of the rest of the world.

Why don't more non-white people become futurists then? Why don't they write their own stuff? If white people do something why is there the implication that they are simultaneously suppressing that output from everybody else? You know why you don't find more black futurists? My guess is they spend their time on anti-white rhetoric, and hypothesizing about fictional oppression. Frankly speaking, black people in the wes…

They do, you just dismiss their futurism as "anti-white rhetoric, and hypothesizing about fictional oppression" because it's not sufficiently similar to the futurism someone in your position might come up with.

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#46

Post by danharaj » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #12

jkot wrote: post #9

> One futurist noted that a 1960s film of the “office of the future” made on-par technological predictions (fax machines and the like), but had a glaring omission: The office had no women. To be fair, most futurist thought work will be fully automated by now, and there would be NO people needed in the office or factory.

I work in IT, in an office with about 60 people. Two women. That prediction came true.

It's a prediction in the sense that they didn't even consider the fact that women are capable of working in an office. It was a lack of prediction, an unspoken assumption that an aspect of the status quo would never be upended.

But it's ok, feminism won the fight for equality 30 years ago /s

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#47

Post by caskance » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

stillsut wrote: post #39

onion2k wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GATTACA is about genetic design rather than genetic testing.

The protagonist doesn't wish his brother was born with his same gene for heart failure, he wishes companies would stop using genetic tests to filter out candidates. Most of the movie deals with bad guys trying to find trace hair and DNA from imposters. Genetic testing.

He wishes it the way modern antivaxxers wish big pharma would stop giving kids autism.

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#48

Post by astazangasta » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #3

astazangasta wrote: post #2

A few non sequiturs: 1) 'Futurism' is the early twentieth century philosophy created by Marinetti, launched with this enchanting essay: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/English104/marinetti.... 2) "Instagram began life as a Yelp-style app called Burbn, with photos an afterthought (photos on your phone, is that a thing?)." Is this somehow implying that Instagram invented phones on your camera, or indeed anything…

re 2) I'd read it as that the makers of Instagram initially didn't believe in people actually using cameras in their phones, so the opposite of your interpretation. How many people did have camera feature-phones/early smartphones and did really use the camera? Granted, I was still in high-school, but tons of my peers had phones with cameras, but they were only used very seldomly and not in any phone-specific way (tak…

The innovation that allowed this was really faster wireless networks with internet. My first cell (2005) was a feature phone, had a camera, I used it, but transferring it over the network was slow and painful, so sharing of any kind was impossible. Once it was, it of course required no great leap of imagination to start moving things to the cloud.

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#49

Post by sbmassey » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:53 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #41

fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I'd could see myself reading a newspaper in that situation... probably on my tablet, but you never know. Pretty decent UI with tactile feedback, high-contrast display, lightweight, disposable.

Yep, with the only thing seriously missing being search.

Maybe we eventually get clever enough to print tablet functionality, including search, on a sheet of paper.

Re: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

#50

Post by ManFromUranus » Mon, Sep 14, 2015, 2:56 PM UTC

caskance wrote: post #45

ManFromUranus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't more non-white people become futurists then? Why don't they write their own stuff? If white people do something why is there the implication that they are simultaneously suppressing that output from everybody else? You know why you don't find more black futurists? My guess is they spend their time on anti-white rhetoric, and hypothesizing about fictional oppression. Frankly speaking, black people in the wes…

They do, you just dismiss their futurism as "anti-white rhetoric, and hypothesizing about fictional oppression" because it's not sufficiently similar to the futurism someone in your position might come up with.

Name some of them then. I haven't read any content by black futurists (that I was aware of).