We Are Living in a Science Fictional Age

1) We’re living in a science fictional era, thanks to all the incredible technological and scientific discoveries we’ve made. (At the time, we were just starting to discover exoplanets and sequence the DNA of individual people.) In some sense, science fiction has “come true.”

2) This means science fiction is uniquely qualified to comment on the era we’re living in, and is the only pop culture that accurately reflects the world around us.

3) Meanwhile, science fiction itself has clearly gone mainstream. Absolutely everybody was talking about Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Batman and William Gibson’s novels. Knowing about those things was a matter of basic cultural literacy.

4) So viewing science fiction as belonging to one group of people, or being aimed at a particular niche, is ultimately pointless. Science fiction that panders to hardcore fans instead of being accessible to everyone will probably fail. Also, nostalgia is a waste of time—science fiction should be about the future, and about newness.

Notes:

Folksonomies: culture futurism science fiction

Taxonomies:
/art and entertainment/books and literature/science fiction (0.658639)
/art and entertainment/books and literature (0.296306)
/technology and computing (0.252975)

Keywords:
science fiction (0.952184 (negative:-0.380785)), science fictional era (0.842271 (neutral:0.000000)), Science Fictional Age (0.833776 (neutral:0.000000)), basic cultural literacy (0.758120 (positive:0.292315)), scientific discoveries (0.636753 (positive:0.712320)), Battlestar Galactica (0.627145 (negative:-0.527506)), Absolutely everybody (0.622274 (negative:-0.472158)), pop culture (0.603627 (positive:0.615488)), individual people (0.603114 (neutral:0.000000)), William Gibson (0.601222 (neutral:0.000000)), particular niche (0.597176 (neutral:0.000000)), Star Wars (0.595786 (negative:-0.292337)), hardcore fans (0.588762 (negative:-0.814245)), time—science fiction (0.580061 (negative:-0.483186)), exoplanets (0.466821 (neutral:0.000000)), newness (0.463346 (neutral:0.000000)), thanks (0.457679 (positive:0.712320)), nostalgia (0.442393 (negative:-0.483186)), mainstream (0.442073 (neutral:0.000000)), sequence (0.441863 (neutral:0.000000)), Batman (0.441222 (neutral:0.000000)), sense (0.440873 (neutral:0.000000)), DNA (0.438821 (neutral:0.000000)), matter (0.436676 (positive:0.292315)), world (0.435703 (positive:0.615488)), novels (0.434286 (neutral:0.000000)), things (0.433826 (positive:0.292315))

Entities:
William Gibson:Person (0.802912 (neutral:0.000000)), Batman:Person (0.771097 (neutral:0.000000))

Concepts:
Science fiction (0.975037): dbpedia | freebase
Novel (0.710882): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Science (0.542657): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Fiction (0.528208): dbpedia | freebase
Future (0.517036): dbpedia | freebase
Genre (0.498392): dbpedia | freebase
Short story (0.492907): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Culture (0.424966): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc

 io9 Was Founded on the Idea That Science Fiction Belongs to Everyone
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article:  Anders, Charlie Jane (20160429), io9 Was Founded on the Idea That Science Fiction Belongs to Everyone, io9, Retrieved on 2016-06-08
  • Source Material [io9.gizmodo.com]
  • Folksonomies: science fiction