the other day, i was discussing sci-fi books with someone on the internet, and i ranted about how some older books in the genre, particularly those from the 60s and 70s, didn't even bother to try to "predict" future tech.
in asimov's foundation and empire, for example, set many thousands of years in the future, people were still learning the news from newspapers and "televisors." people received messages as physical electronic capsules, and books were made using microfilm read with a projector.
nowadays, all these activities can be done using the same device that can fit in a pocket.
contrasting the predictions of people in the past with the actual reality is always fun and teaches us a lot—not only about how those people thought but also about ourselves today.
asimov's predictions about media, for example, failed to foresee the migration to electronic/digital mediums, thanks to the computer. sure, newspapers and tvs are still around today, but most of us now consume content via our computers and/or smartphones.
it would have been even harder for the author, in the 1950s when the book was published, to imagine a world where information production and circulation were as democratized as they are today.
thanks to the digital tools we have access to and the networks and platforms built using these tools, anybody can be their own television station, producing content and distributing it entirely via the internet on youtube, facebook, etc. heck, this individual can even go live and have millions of people watch in real-time. they can have an interview with a guest on the other side of the planet for virtually no extra cost other than the internet bill.
everybody and anybody can be their own media outlet nowadays. the production of information has finally been democratized. and that would have been way too hard for anyone to predict 60 years before it took place.
see you tomorrow.