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This is why I'm skeptical of sci-fi writers as futurists

From National Defense Magazine, a short account of a meeting of SIGMA, "a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation:"

The 45-minute panel discussion quickly deteriorated as federal, local and state homeland security officials, and at least one congressional aid, attempted to ask questions, which were largely ignored.

Instead the writers used their time to pontificate on a variety of tangentially related topics, including their past roles advising the government, predictions in their stories that have come to pass, the demise of the paperback book market, and low-cost launch into space.

[To the tune of Perpetual Groove, "Naive Melody," from the album "Live at the Georgia Theatre, 31 December 2005".]

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27 March 2008 at 20:39 in Futures |

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What is the End of Cyberspace?

  • About the end of cyberspace

    Cyberspace is a "metaphor we live by," born two decades ago at the intersection of computers, networks, ideas, and experience. It has reflected our experiences with information technology, and also shaped the way we think about new technologies and the challenges they present. It had been a vivid and useful metaphor for decades; but in a rapidly-emerging world of mobile, always-on information devices (and eventually cybernetic implants, prosthetics, and swarm intelligence), the rules that define the relationship between information, places, and daily life are going to be rewritten. As the Internet becomes more pervasive-- as it moves off desktops and screen and becomes embedded in things, spaces, and minds-- cyberspace will disappear.

  • About this blog

    This blog is about what happens next. It's about the end of cyberspace, but more important, about what new possibilities will emerge as new technologies, interfaces, use practices, games, legal theory, regulation, and culture adjust-- and eventually dissolve-- the boundaries between the virtual and physical worlds.

  • About the author

    Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is an historian of science and futurist.

    ping Pang

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