Is Science Fiction Destroying the World?

Sam Freedman in the Guardian seems to think so.

If sci-fi’s influence was simply on product design, it wouldn’t be a problem. If Zuckerberg wants to burn his own cash in pursuit of a personal fantasy, or Musk wants to build hideous cars, that’s their call. It may even inspire something genuinely useful from time to time.

​The real issue is that sci-fi hasn’t just infused the tech moguls’ commercial ideas but also their warped understanding of society and politics. The dominant genre of sci-fi in the 80s and 90s, when today’s Silicon Valley overlords were growing up, was Cyberpunk – as exemplified in the novels of William Gibson (who invented the term “cyberspace”) and Stephenson, as well as any number of films and video games. The grandfather of the genre was Philip K Dick, whose novels and short stories spawned films including Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report.

As a kid, I really wanted the future offered by Star Trek. I thought we might achieve something far more grand than the PDKian world we're stuck in now...and that we may never get out of.