Neal Stephenson said:(from "Innovation Starvation", in the World Policy Journal)
Speaking broadly, the techno-optimism of the Golden Age of SF has given way to fiction written in a generally darker, more skeptical and ambiguous tone. I myself have tended to write a lot about hackers—trickster archetypes who exploit the arcane capabilities of complex systems devised by faceless others.
Believing we have all the technology we’ll ever need, we seek to draw attention to its destructive side effects. This seems foolish now that we find ourselves saddled with technologies like Japan’s ramshackle 1960’s-vintage reactors at Fukushima when we have the possibility of clean nuclear fusion on the horizon. The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rules. It’s the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments. Too bad we’ve forgotten how to do it.
In short, Stephenson suggests that the direction of fiction in recent years is in part responsible for the technological ennui we face. This, however, is something that can be fixed.
Enter Project Hieroglyph, from Arizona State University's Center for Science and Imagination - a site for collaboration among authors, scientists, engineers, and artists to collaborate on ambitious visions of the near future that are not all about how we are set for ruination. A quick scan of the member list includes the likes of Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Bear, Rudy Rucker, and Greg Benford. Ultimately, the intent is for products of the site to go into a HarperCollins anthology of fiction and non-fiction, set to be published in 2014.
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