Re: Back To The Future Discussion Topic
Actually, Dark, I'd challenge your assertion that the idea that technological progress goes hand in hand with societal progress is a hallmark of sci-fi at large. If anything, I find that more often than not, it's the opposite. You certainly had a few "golden age" authors who saw technological advancement as the end of all human ills, but for the most part, I've found that sci-fi uses the future to paint a commentary on the present realities of the human condition, and how those realities may play themselves out. This goes all the way back to the earliest SF writers - Mary SHelley's Frankenstein, and Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau come to mind. Then you get to more modern writers and you find the same thing in most of the big names. Ray Bradbury, Phillip Dick, Michael Crichton are all authors that come to mind in whose writing we find a future that isn't socially ideal - if anything, the advances in technology just serve to underscore the pr oblems that society already faces. So really I think there are two distinct schools of sci-fi - the one is optimistic, and sees technology as the savior as humanity; the other is a little more grim, and sees technology as the crutch with which humanity tries, unsuccessfully, to hide its flaws and avoid the consequences of its wrongdoings. Just my take on the genre, of course.
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