The dystopian genre is starting to be stomach-churning. It’s always the same story. Human ambition generates a virological, quantum, nuclear, climatic or computer catastrophe – here fashions change – and the world is allowed to fall downhill towards a dark future where we have to survive stones, shootings and bad vibes in general. The supposed utopias in the style of A happy world, by Aldous Huxley, are even more dystopian, because they present a humanity that is alienated, manipulated and subjected to a concept of progress that hardly deserves the name. Whatever we do, the scriptwriters tell us, we are going to end up very screwed.
The blame for this tiring situation can be traced to Mary Shelley, who set the standard two centuries ago with her Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, where the main features of the genre are presented: a scientist whose ambition exceeds his talent creates a monster that escapes his grasp and organizes a carnage. When Shelley wrote it, it was a display of narrative talent and futuristic intelligence, but two centuries later it is time to explore other more subtle and interesting threads for our time.
For example, how about an ordinary future? Neither utopian nor dystopian, neither bright nor dark, neither resigned nor heroic. Just ordinary. I do not mean a future just like the present, but just as ordinary as the present, with its advances and setbacks, its opportunities and its risks and, above all, aware that humanity is not a stupid and manipulable monolith, but a species of extraordinary complexity despite its evolutionary youth.
The virological, quantum, nuclear, climatic or computer catastrophe can occur, there is no doubt, but we already know that at least since Oppenheimer, and what we already know is a very weak narrative matter, right? What we ask of a screenwriter of this genre is a complex, creative, fruitful imagination, the kind of thing ChatGPT doesn’t know how to do. Right now, most of the futuristic series could be written by the robot without serious loss of content, and that is bad news for this work sector. If you don’t want your artificial neurons replaced, you will have to put your own to work.
Cultural journalists Valerie Thompson and Angela Sani propose a selection of books that can serve as inspiration for restless screenwriters, despite belonging to the non-fiction shelf. For example, jurist Claire Horn suggests in Eve: the disobedient future of birth (“Eve, the disobedient future of birth”) a future in which artificial wombs will be an alternative to pregnancy. But it is not presented as a catastrophic dystopia, but as an option for women who want it. Issues about reproductive rights and gender equality are exactly what the book deals with in depth, and could help our scriptwriter build his story. ChatGPT already takes care of the shootings, really.
Robotics engineer (roboticist?) Daniela Rus has just published in English The heart and the chip: our bright future with robots (“The heart and the chip: our bright future with robots”), where the subtitle is enough to intuit a brighter time than the one painted by the average ash of our days. Knowledge dispels fear, despite Hollywood’s insistence on maintaining the opposite. And there are several more books, perhaps a Spanish editor might be interested in them. They seem like intelligent and sophisticated prospects, a breath of fresh air in the panorama painted by the doomsayers.
Catastrophism is boring. It is more predictable than Pavlov’s dog and has as much subtlety as a hippo’s hand. There are much more interesting and multifaceted futures than the ones they are painting for us, and it would be best if we tried to enter one of those.
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