Wake up from the Dream of Longevity
Science fiction was a forerunner of future developments in the past century. Science fiction writers of the 1960s & 70s imagined many of today’s technological advances, from the automatic sliding door of Star Trek, to cyberspace, visual communication and even the lunar landing. Science fiction has been a great inspiration for modern technology, even though it was not meant to be prophetic.
Science fiction has taught us not only about the potential of technology but also its unavoidable dangers. The stories that warn us about the dangers of space travel, artificial intelligence, and mind enhancement will be familiar to readers of this genre. These fictional stories warned that if we weren’t careful, our freedom of changing the world around us could turn into self-imposed slavery.
While many of us knew that these stories were only fiction, meant to be speculations about possible futures–in short, they were science before fiction–we became accustomed to the idea, that advanced technology is inherently dangerous, and its use should always be questioned. Moreover, it became a commonplace idea that technologies whose aim was to change or transform the human being–whether genetic, biological or reconstructive–would lead to a future worthy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Source:
https://www.leafscience.org/waking-up-from-the-dream-of-longevity/
