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Science fiction as an api for our emotions - Karen Chowlakaranchawla.io/2025/07/12/scifi
188 sats \ 3 comments \ @Scoresby 15h BooksAndArticles
This is what I’ve come to think science fiction really does: it’s not prediction or even imagination. It’s emotional documentation for futures we haven’t lived yet.
The most influential sci-fi is often wrong about everything except how it feels. Star Trek got virtually every technical detail wrong about the future. But it got the social dynamics of diverse teams working together on complex problems exactly right. It prepared us emotionally for globalized, multicultural workplaces decades before they became common.
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 14h
Science fiction isn’t about predicting the future. It’s about feeling the future. It’s about building up the emotional infrastructure we’ll need to navigate whatever comes next. The stories we tell about impossible tomorrows are how we prepare our hearts for the impossible today that’s surely coming.
Science Fiction also serves as the warning that we sometimes get from those who have to get our consent before they do anything to us. We have to consent before they can f@ck us over, even if it is a consent by silence or not objecting. Science Fiction has served this purpose admirably in many occasions, sometimes in books and sometimes in cinema. We have to learn to object and refuse to consent loudly and proudly every time we don’t want something coming our way.
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled 14h
i really enjoyed Next Gen. most impressively i think they nailed a lot of the cultural allusions. when they're done right, sci fi and mystery are two genres thay i hold in a very high regard
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @bitcoingecko 13h
I don't disagree but Star Trek was set in still the future. Of course the real point of star trek was to get us to think about society today.
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