J
jmilsom
Guest
Science fiction writers often come quite close to their observations on society and predictions with respect to technological innovation. The two areas where I feel they are consistently off the mark is with respect to medical technology and to a lesser degree computers.<br /><br />In most science fiction books, the future seems to be disease free. Most illnesses have been dealt with. People are healthy and rarely get sick. But look at our society in general. We seem to be losing the war against microbes. We feed our livestock with antibiotic laced growth promoters and as a result we now have vancomycin resistant bacteria killing people is hospitals (that is the last line antibiotic, you catch a multi-drug and vancomycin resistant strain and you’re dead). We seem to be losing the battle on all fronts - tuberculosis, malaria - you name it. Where are these miracle cures in the Sci Fi books?????<br /><br />And computers. Notice how everyone has their own personal AI and can quickly access all the information in the world without trouble. Whoever predicted we’d be victims of popups, viruses, adware. Some subjects are so dominated by quacks, it is hard to find the real information. Which character in SciFi has looked at their wrist AI, and said “Darn popups!” or "Jim looked at wrist AI, half an hour and many muttered curses later, he found the information, but by then it was too late!" No they do a quick search and there it is.<br /><br />Any comments on this?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>