The novel is based on my book “Los Angeles: A History of the Future” http://www.issuu.com/metroeco/docs/lahof

For a basic foundation on this answer. there can be no YOU-topia.. that is an artifact of monofactory industrialization. POLY-topia is possible and we are building it every day. I am Gen 6 at spacecollective and i am open to taking on a Lifeboat member as a Descendant if they be willing to make measured contribution to our site. We have been around a while and stay in the back currents of the InfoOcean. Please do explore our Cargo from the Future.

As to dystopinaism — easy — safe time produce scary stories and scary times produce stories of golden ages, fantasies, and escapes.

The theme I’m seeing emerging here is the idea of agency and then extent to which people feel they have control over their own lives. The dystopic sci-fi is often reflective of a belief that the individual has no control, or at the least, lacks full control. To an extent that is accurate and fair enough.

And as David Brin commented, it’s a lazy approach because no one has full control, some have more than others. Kate McC’ pointed out the idea of people planning as per the 15 Goals from the Millenium project. By recent book is aimed fairly and squarely at providing a process through which people can plan for their live.

But it requires a discipline. The ‘set and forget’ model of an effective future has pretty much evaporated for most people on this planet. The degree to which a person takes ownership of their chosen future is a commitment to it. I’d suggest also that for most people on this planet, life is not all doom and gloom nor filled with wonder — it’s a pretty mundane existence.

Writing about a mundane existence in a sci-fi setting would possibly be as Joe Haldeman suggests ‘pretty boring’ and yet I wonder if we’re missing something by ignoring the boring and mundane? Certainly some gritty movies out of Europe over the years have explored the human spirit dealing with the drudgery of every day existence.

If technology is going to free many from the drudgery or work, what kind of drudgery will it be replaced with? Which swings me back to the idea of Agency — hands up if you’ve mapped out a personal plan for your own life? Complete with a compelling Vision, identification of core strategic issues, well founded exploration and understanding of available capabilities?

When I ask that question to an audience, it doesn’t matter if they’re CEO’s or school kids, the numbers are about the same — for every 50ppl I see about 3 or 4 hands go up.

I’m slowing edging my model into schools — I love the idea of human agency, grounded in a realistic understanding and preparation for the unexpected (good or not so). The point we begin to see Utopic sci-fi re-emerge will be the leading edge of society saying ‘we’ve had enough of this crap’. It will be the indication that the public are ready to move toward something better.

For now the lazy dystopic sci-fi allows everyone to wallow in self pity that it’s all beyond their control

Sharad I’d love to read your draft and offer some thoughts
Marcus :-)

Why do some many scifi books focus on the dystopian? The same reason that much TV news focuses on the bad news and not the good. If it “bleeds it leads”. There is a large meme structure for violence and negative situations in most human groups these days. And these themes both feed into that and are fed by it. The same is true of the sex meme structure and the religious one. (And both are used in many scifi books too).

Utopian scifi books that comes to my mind include 2150 AD and Stranger in a Strange Land. Although the heros in both are killed their ideas are seen to live on.

»For example, Neal Stephenson’s Hieroglyph Project aims at encouraging a re-engagement of science fiction with positive thinking… though not always positive or happy endings.

I’d joined the forums earlier this month after hearing about the Hieroglyph Project. My post, was on the idea of using Digital Surrogates (Dirrogates) and Augmented Reality for Digital Resurrection.
One of the ideas being, investigating it’s possible therapeutic benefit to people (humanity).

The premise being, if VR is used to help soldiers, Autistic children, those in rehab… How much more effective would AR be?
The post is here: http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/forums/topic/augmented-reality-and-quantum-archeology-resurrect-dead-loved-ones/

Thanks David again. You summed it up well with this phrase
“Storytelling Sloth”

@Ron: » I think part of the desire for dystopian sci-fi is due to the economy and culture. Sci-fi that was hopeful was created during hopeful times.

You’re right, and this is what I replied on the Facebook discussion of this topic:
“You’ve aptly noted how (and why) Captain America and the other super heroes were born during the period in which they were… and why they’ve made a comeback. OK, that, and also because we seem to be on a trip towards meeting Kurzweil’s singularity prediction of 2030.- Some genius at Google/Hollywood must have mulled it over:

If we can’t get computers to think smart by 2030…let’s dumb down the human mind… meet computers half-way… Ba-da-bam! Singularity!“
(only kidding on that last bit of-course!)

@John Fellows: Is there any online version of the talk? I’d love to take a look.

@Joe: Good to see you on Lifeboat! Yes, the religious (ok I call it mythology now-a-days) is an angle that I had to tread cautiously on in my book. With no intention to convert readers, but to hopefully open their minds, hence the line in one of the chapters “Others didn’t use logic, they evangelized that catchall phrase ‘have faith’”…

One example me and a few friends like to use is abortion. Those who want to run our lives keep talking about it as if it was important — its a divide-and-conquer tactic. They pose the problem as having two sides: pro and con. But me and my friends see a third option, using technology to make the issue moot. Once we have cheap and plentiful artificial uteruses that can incubate a fetus to birth, the problem goes away. But so many people are too entrenched in their two-party ways that they can’t conceive of anything else. That will change when the tech does finally come along.

I think that once people’s perception of the future start improving, then we will see a return to an appreciation of hopeful science fiction.