Okay, time for a little historical perspective here. The golden age of technophilic science fiction was the midst of the Depression through Macarthyism up until, I would say, A Clockwork Orange. This day and age is no better and no worse than any other. In fact, in most ways it's a lot better. I have the sense that dystopian sf really got going when we landed on the moon. For some reason, I'm not sure why, people writing sf began to believe that we couldn't technofix our way out of our problems (environmental and societal) and that it would be much harder. So instead of trying to write good social SF were people created innovative societies with, perhaps different ways to allocate wealth, deal with prejudice or deal with pollution, writers took the easy way out and imagined worlds where the whole thing fell apart.

How's this for a story idea challenge. Write a story, set in the near future where the main character is actually trying to put a world government in place that would : 1) Be democratic; 2) Protect the rights of minorities; 3) Put in regulatory systems that allowed for sustainable development; 4) Provided for universal education and finally, my personal favorite 5) allowed for the exploration of space.

Now, someone tell me there's no built in conflict with that. In fact, I think that should be the next themed issue for Aeon.

SF people are some of the smartest and most creative people around. We should be expermenting with this kind of thing and not bitching anc complaining about who screwed the world is. F