So, we aren’t flying ships to Jupiter (again), but I can think of one science fiction writer whose vision of the future feels true.
Take this lovely passage from the third chapter of Philip K Dick’s Ubik:
Picking up the vidphone, he dialed 213, the extension for the maintenance circuit of the building. “Listen,” he said, when the homeostatic entity answered. “I’m now in a position to divert some of my funds in the direction of settling my bill vis-avis your clean-up robots. I’d like them up here right now to go over my apt. I’ll pay the full and entire bill when they’re finished.”
“Sir, you’ll pay your full and entire bill before they start.”
By now he had his billfold in hand; from it he dumped his supply of Magic Credit Keys—most of which, by now, had been voided. Probably in perpetuity, his relationship with money and the payment of pressing debts being such as it was. “I’ll charge my overdue bill against my Triangular Magic Key,” he informed the nebulous antagonist. “That will transfer the obligation out of your jurisdiction; on your books it’ll show as total restitution.”
“Plus fines, plus penalties.”
“I’ll charge those against my Heart-Shaped—”
“Mr. Chip, the Ferris & Brockman Retail Credit Auditing and Analysis Agency has published a special flier on you. Our receipt-slot received it yesterday and it remains fresh in our minds. Since July you’ve dropped from a triple G status creditwise to a quadruple G. Our department—in fact this entire conapt building—is now programed against an extension of services and/or credit to such pathetic anomalies as yourself, sir. Regarding you, everything must be hereafter be handled on a basic-cash subfloor. In fact, you’ll probably be on a basic-cash subfloor for the rest of your life. In fact—”
He hung up….
The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay, you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
This little section from Dick’s book—hell, a surprising number of passages from PKD’s short stories and novels of useful people pecked apart by mechanized and institutionalized petty greed—feel so utterly contemporary.
Dick’s gratuity demanding door comes to mind every time I end up being accused of theft by one of the blasted automated checkout machines at QFC—typically triggered by my desire to use a cloth bag, or some other innocent act. The petty shenanigans of credit card issuers, insurance providers, health care providers, cell phone, telephone and cable companies all are gurgling into a lovely deregulated, anti-consumer fetid broth.
Welcome to the future.
Mad scribblings such as these will not have a place in society after the singularity.
Or, if you prefer, you will be assimilated.
On the other hand, in one of Phil’s books a character in a planetary colony slams out an angry letter on a typewriter, so he wasn’t 100%.
Neat!
So when do the aliens use their ovipositors on us and our caste system evolves into Alpha, Bankers, and Gamma?
One thing that almost all sci-fi writers including Dick missed entirely is the rise of the Web and Social Media.
Almost every vision is that of a man interacting with an all powerful or rogue computer (2001, Colossus).
There is no mention at all about the hours per week people spend in human-to-human interaction with visual mediation!!
Amazing that everyone got it so very, very wrong.
The QFC machines are triggered by your association with known criminals.
Science fiction was, is, and always will be commentary on the time it is written. It does not pretend to predict the future.
I don’t know about QFC (Seattle’s Kroger colony) but at King Soopers (Denver’s Kroger colony), the machines ask you if you’re using your own bag when you plop the cloth bag in place; you then click “YES” and it notifies the attendant to give you credit for each bag you’re using.
I think it’s just a Seattle thing.
God, I hate those self-checkout machines. I make it a point to steal whatever I can conceivably justify as an honest mistake with them, not because I like stealing, but because it makes it less attractive for QFC to use those infernal machines rather than a competent human as a cashier.
Greed? I haven’t read the story but that excerpt seems to be more about people who spend money they don’t have. Credit cards are free if you don’t hold a balance. Phones and cable TV are optional. Insurance and health care are mandated and heavily regulated by government so those industries are in the business of looking for loopholes rather than providing the best service to customers.
It’s fine (and necessary) to ostracize the greedy but that is nowhere near the largest of the problems we have in our consumption society.
@10 Isn’t spending other people’s money a form of greed?
@5, @7 – William Gibson invented the term “cyberspace.” The virtual environment he describes in Neuromancer was an inspiration to the people who designed the first web interfaces. Plus, the portable “decks” he describes are essentially laptops. Sometimes Science Fiction creates the future rather than predicting it.
@11 – Not sure I’d classify that as greed. If the money was voluntarily handed over I’d call it charity. If it was taken without consent or under the threat of force I’d call it a crime and I think THAT is a big problem.
I always try to argue from the libertarian perspective on Slog so you might have misunderstood my comment if it came off sounding like I support redistribution economics.
@10: The only credit card I ever had cost about 70 bucks a year, even if I didn’t carry a balance. Which… isn’t free.
@14 – I have Bank of America and Citicard cards that are completely free (but no ‘rewards’). If those monster banks have free cards I have to believe there are others out there.
@5 Wrong. Enders Game….
@16 Ender’s Game did get pretty close, what with the ‘nets’ where people interact in forums. And all the kids have these little laptop-type computers that bear a good resemblance to descriptions of the mysterious Apple tablet…