Sci Fi and the technological imagination

We discussed dystopian visions (and utopian ones, but less so) in CS201 today and it reminded me of something I've been struck by. (This in no way implies that others haven't been struck by this or that it is original. But it's new to me. :) ) I have an impression that the fantasies of science fiction often predict technologies that are actually developed, and I don't think this is because the Nostradamus-like qualities of the authors.

One, does such a link actually exist?
* the "Good Old Fashioned" AI program -- focusing on making computers that can completely interact with humans but be more perfect information processors -- seems to have preceeded by sci-fi fantasies like Metropolis (or really, just the very natural-seeming idea that we'd want perfect slaves)
* cyberspace (but I haven't actually read Neuromancer yet, so I might be blowing hot air)
* ?

But why might such a link exist? It doesn't make intuitive sense to me that technologists would read about dystopias and decide to bring it about in a megalomaniacal urge to intervene. More likely it seems that science fiction's predictions would become decontextualized as the ideas travel through literature and social networks, stripping the technologies imagined from the dystopian contexts iin which they were first imagined. Or, perhaps there isn't decontextualization, but just an optimism that 1) it's just a little device or 2) we can always choose whether we want to follow the next step technology makes available to us.

Any thoughts on the nature of interconnections between literature and the technological imagination?

Early adopters, meet the pragmatist packs

Doug makes a useful point that there is a model of blogging very attached to the idea of personal identity and more democratic access to the power of the getting the message out. This is the model that leads to blogs as either serious publishing outlets for op-ed sorts of pieces or for journals at a distance that convey a sometimes mistaken sense of anonymity. But it seems to me that when you look at the print publishing world, you see newspapers like The Nation, The New York Times, or 'zines -- and these are almost always the product of a group of people working around a common theme.

I'd argue that group blogging is the way of the future.

You might argue that the group nature of traditional print media is a function of its economics. Distribution has marginal cost greater than zero. However, publishing in groups also provides validation of what you do publish, since more than a lone ranter is standing behind it.

There is also something different about who has been blogging and who will join (if they do). Later adopters different kinds of people than the technology early adopter "visionary" types who pride themselves on their expertise and forward-lookingness. most people don't feel like they have something so uniquely important to say that people will care enough to read about them and just about them. This is vaguely based on the same reasoning put forth by Geoff Moore in "Crossing the Chasm," but for a business book it actually makes sense. ;)

There are enough people who do that blogging in its current "personal publishing" form that it has become a fairly widespread phenomenon, but I think community organizing -- and the support and validation it provides -- is far more likely than soapboxing or publishing your personal diary.

What's in a name?

In trying to name this blog, Doug and I amused ourselves at our play on the art collective Future Farmers. When we're better slept, it'll probably be less funny and we'll change it to something else.

I pitched this to Doug as

i'm thinking virtuality, new media, interface design, embodiment, video games, film genres, technical developments relevant to...whatever

Why here? Because whenever I post this stuff to my Livejournal, I feel the cyberspace equivalent of uncomfortable silence. ;)

This will be a place for us and whoever else to discuss ideas about the future identity, thought, and expression.