A New York City Police Department officer during a protest against police violence, July 15, 2020Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images
On Tuesday, July 21, at 4 p.m. Eastern, P.W. Singer, co-author of the new book Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution, and Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series and Chosen Ones, will join June Thomas, senior managing producer for Slate podcasts, to discuss the role of speculative fiction in the real world. RSVP here.
It hits you every so often.
When you tug on a face mask to go pick up food for your family.
When you witness the powerless suffer casual violence by a man with a sneer.
When you see riot police surround the Lincoln Memorial and protesters snatched off the streets by masked soldiers in unmarked cars.
And when you realize that it is all being watched by an unblinking eye of A.I. surveillance.
At times, it feels like we are living in a real-world version of dystopia. The strange outcome, though, is that it means we need dystopian fiction now more than ever, to help us sort and even make it through it.
Youd think with everything going on, now would be the last time to escape to a world of darkness. And yet books, including those of awful imagined worlds, are in deep demand.Some of it has been a return to old classics. In a period of disease and lockdowns lasting for weeks, booksellers report the seeming irony that Albert Camus The Plague and Gabriel Garca Mrquezs One Hundred Years of Solitudehave seen renewed demand. And some of it has been escaping into new worlds, as with Divergent author Veronica Roth taking readers into another post-apocalypse with her new novel Chosen Ones. People have even been willing to enter imagined worlds that seem not too far away, such as Lawrence Wrights best-selling pandemic thriller The End of October.
Yet the value of the genre is as much in education as entertainment. It can elucidate dangers, serving the role of warning and even preparation. Think of the recent resonance of Margaret Atwoods 1985 Handmaids Tale and its 2020 sequel The Testaments or the revival of interest in It Cant Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis in 1935. These are finely written works, not as indulgences, but as a pure expression of the idea that to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Even Susan Collins Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, might be interpreted in that light, showing how authoritarian rule can originate through the manipulations of an ambitious striver.
Our personal corner of this dark market is the meld of imagination with research. For our book Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution, we chose the setting of not a far-off imagined world like Panem or Gilead, but Washington, D.C., just around the corner. What happens as Silicon Valleys visions of utopia hits our real, and very divided, country? What plays out in politics, business, and even family life as our economy is rewired by AI and automation? Yet to make our scenario more haunting, we back up everything that happens in it with 27 pages of endnotes.
When the scarier elements from an imagined world come to life in the real one, however, there is no gleeful I told you so. When the novel coronavirus accelerated the more widespread roll out of the robots, remote work, job automation, and AI surveillance projected in our book, we certainly werent happy. All it meant was that all the tough dilemmas that our characters face would come quicker for all of us. What was perhaps most disturbing of the last few weeks, though, were when some of the most dystopian scenes we had painted of a future Washington, D.C., also came true, from our books scene of riot police deployed around the Lincoln Memorial to the militarized fence thrown up around the White House being put exactly where we had it in Burn-In.
Yet what makes dystopian fiction different is that its creators are oddly optimists at heart, as we are. These works are not about prediction, but prevention. The stories warn of just how far things can go if action isnt taken, wrapped in a package that is far more impactful than a white paper or PowerPoint. Indeed, research shows that narrative, the oldest communication technology of all, holds more sway over both the public and policymakers than even the most canonical academic sources. Our minds cant help but connect to the synthetic environment that our fictional heroes and villains experience, living part of our lives through theirs, even if imagined.
Most importantly, though, the dark worlds are only the setting. The stories are really about the agency of the people in them. And that is perhaps the true value of the dystopian fiction. These stories are not about what those characters experience so much as how they act. At the heart of every story of darkness is a story of perseverance.
As we face our own difficult journeys through the reality of 2020, it is perhaps that lesson which is most important of all.
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
See the rest here:
Why We Need Dystopian Fiction Now More Than Ever - Slate
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- Mardi Gras brings on the fun - Tullahoma News and Guardian - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- Anglea Henderson-Bentley: New take on Jack the Ripper an idea whose 'Time' has come - Huntington Herald Dispatch - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Knowledge can fight ignorance: New speakers series will shed light on Yemen - Detroit Metro Times - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Utopian sci-fi survival horror game, PAMELA, enters Steam Early Access on March 9th New Screenshots - DSOGaming (blog) - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Reese Witherspoon on New Zealand: 'You can't capture it in pictures' - Newshub - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- $168000 headphones to go on display - The New Paper - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- A peek inside the Downtown Project with Aimee Groth - Las Vegas Review-Journal - February 25th, 2017 [February 25th, 2017]
- Utopia is coming, with a basic income for all - The Times (subscription) - February 27th, 2017 [February 27th, 2017]
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- The board hoard: your guide to the best new board games - The Guardian - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
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- THE SOUND OF MUSIC to Welcome New 'Georg von Trapp' on Tour in Hershey - Broadway World - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- At BAMPFA, 'Hippie Modernism' Proves the Fight for Utopia is Far from Over - KQED - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Watch brutal Xenomorph attack in new 'Alien: Covenant' trailer - CNET - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Stellaris: Utopia Path to Ascension release date trailer - Gameplanet - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Utopia Frozen Yogurt and Coffee House | Ellensburg, WA - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Stellaris Utopia Gameplay Expansion Out In April - Attack of the Fanboy - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- Dr. John to headline Utopia Fest in final year at Four Sisters Ranch ... - austin360 (blog) - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- JUSTIN JOHNSON: It's a TRAP! - SCNow - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
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- Extreme Channel 4 reality challenge Mutiny makes its sailors suffer - iNews - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- Rutger Bregman: 'We could cut the working week by a third' - The Guardian - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
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- Father John Misty references Taylor Swift in new song, 'Total Entertainment Forever' - EW.com - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- 'Time After Time' delivers Jack the Ripper to modern-day New York - The San Gabriel Valley Tribune - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Father John Misty Explained The Taylor Swift Sex Line In 'Total Entertainment Forever' - UPROXX - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Why everyone hates the GOP's new health plan - The Week Magazine - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
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- Why Canada will come to regret its embrace of refugees - New York Post - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Utopia in the Time of Trump - lareviewofbooks - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Whole of It: 'Free Cake at the Top' - Scottsbluff Star Herald - March 12th, 2017 [March 12th, 2017]
- Portugal's MAAT could become the world's most exciting venue for art and architecture - The Architect's Newspaper - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
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- The post-Brexit fantasy of a utopia of flammable sofas - New Statesman - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
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- Best of the Week: Focal Utopia, Sonos Playbase, Sgt. Pepper reissue, new 4K Xbox and more - What Hi-Fi? - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
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- Utopia lost: Man wants Berrien 'town' on the map - Valdosta Daily Times - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Psych Ward: The Hulk - Marvel (press release) (registration) (blog) - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Men Are from Mars, Wonder Woman is Also from Mars - VICE - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
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