Sci-Fi

I constantly wonder why people dismiss sci-fi movies and books as geeky flights of fancy. In years past I could understand this, but in 2011 it boggles my mind. Here I sit, typing this blog on a personal computer in preparation for posting it on my Facebook page; until a few years ago this was a notion that would only have been from the realm of geeky sci-fi ideas.

Saying sci-fi isn't your thing while you are checking news, stocks and pictures on your smart phone while posting on Twitter is such a contradiction I don't even know how to address it.

Usually people that say they don't like sci-fi will also say that they like books and movies that are more "real." My question would be, what could be more real than stories that incorporate interesting new sciences and technologies that fundamentally alter the way the world works? The old saying goes that truth is stranger than fiction; the proof of this is all around us. If I was to show the people of the 1960's Facebook and tell them a story of a world of people obsessed with posting updates of their lives in pursuit of a level of narcissism that has no equal in human history, they would ask me if Asimov or Bradbury wrote that one.

So much of our current culture has been informed and shaped by sci-fi; just look to Star Trek and it's portable communicator for the inspiration of the cell phone. Give sci-fi a chance. After all, one day it may be Scotty on the other side of that cell phone making preparations to beam you up.