"What are we telling ourselves? What will happen? What might happen?" Wed Oct-16-19 11:58 AM by double negative
Thought experiment.
Part l:
As an 80s/90s kid I remember comedians, specifically black comedians saying "We will neeeeever have a black president. Never ever ever". The cynicism towards the idea of a black president ran so deep that for a while the use of a black president in TV and movies became a trope unto itself (i.e., The Fifth Element, Idiocracy, Deep Impact...fuck there is even a wikipedia page dedicated to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_presidents_of_the_United_States_in_popular_culture)
All of this happened before we had a real, living, black president.
The link above is a compilation of what seems to be every example in media before 9/11 happening that some sort of hijacking/airplane/event would happen. The video clips of course only make sense retrospectively.
Part lll:
The rejection of dystopian futures in sci-fi writing / embracing utopian futures in sco-fi writing.
There is now a growing push in some sci-fi writing circles to focus on imagining better futures. There is a belief that dystopian writing has effected the world and can act as a subconscious driver of actions at mass levels.
Alright so...I might not be connecting the ideas in a meaningful manner, but do you ever wonder if we're telegraphing something relating to a big negative future event or a big positive future event but it's impossible to see it because its impossible to connect the dots on something that has not yet happened?
I wonder if there are themes present in our output (output being the media and artifacts we produce and consume) that will make a lot of sense in the future - but right now the points just seem impossible to tie to something because its impossible for us to know the future.
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