I’ve been thinking about how a lot of science fiction portrays futures that feel far more optimistic than the world we actually seem to be heading toward.
In real life we’re dealing with many simultaneous, compounding crises: AI being deployed in ways that cannibalize society under capitalism, an ever increasing cost of living with fixed wages, declining birth rates (people replacing children with pets/mascots), pollution, mass extinction of biodiversity, climate change, etc. It feels less like “one big problem” and more like death by a thousand cuts.
By contrast, in most SF stories there are usually one or two central issues to grapple with—an evil AI, an empire, climate collapse—but rarely the overwhelming stack of interlocking failures we see in reality. Even dystopias often feel strangely cleaner and more legible than real life.
Is there a known psychological explanation for this? Something like optimism bias, positivity bias, planning fallacy, or cognitive overconfidence, where we systematically underestimate complexity and overestimate humanity’s ability to coordinate and improve? Or is it more about narrative constraints and what the human mind can comfortably model?
Curious if there’s research, theory, or even just good takes on why imagined futures so often look “better” than the present.
Not All SF is optimistic. I could start bringing up huge names - but it doesn’t matter. That wasn’t really your question.
Fiction - be SF or Fantasy - is mostly* about escapism at the end.
People who read them don’t want reality. They want to forget stuff that bothers them, that they can’t do anything about.*Mostly, because some books are using fantasy/sf to introduce higher concepts, but usually that goes over most reader’s head.
It feels less like “one big problem” and more like death by a thousand cuts.
A lot of sci-fi was generally written to play with a few ideas. I think it would be difficult to create a narrative around several problems with different causes and solutions.
I suggest Peter Watts.
most SF stories there are usually one or two central issues to grapple with—an evil AI, an empire, climate collapse—but rarely the overwhelming stack of interlocking failures we see in reality. Even dystopias often feel strangely cleaner and more legible than real life.
Writers try to build tight narratives. Portraying a polycrisis is hard. It’s even harder if you want to focus on one or two factors. Decent editors try to cut extraneous stuff out of stories, so they’ll try to trim out factors that aren’t necessary to the main story arc.
And then you need to consider the audience. Can a writer portray a polycrisis in a way that viewers or readers will stick with? Or will the audience get tired of a laundry list of problems?
I suggest Peter Watts because he writes (wrote?) good genre fiction that’s depressing and includes multiple reasons to be depressed.
Idk what science fiction you have been reading, but nearly entire genre is pretty much dark by now. The only visions which are “better” are just the unreal end of history and the return to status quo space operas which are also usually centered around epic military conflicts and completely gloss over, or rather run away from the contradictions of capitalism (“look, the universe is infinite, we can keep expanding forever!”). A LOT of works are just complete dystopias or postapo scenarios.
I was talking about this recently, how there are so few optimistic sci-fi that I think it’s speaks poorly to where we’re heading. If we can’t visualize a better world how are we going to work towards it? Other than Star Trek what scifi has an optimistic view of the future?
Think from the angle of the story and what you desire to tell from the said story.
An advanced post scarcity civilization developed through cooperation and pacifism , but what happens when one element on the fringe of the human federation suddenly starts assimilating other neighboring regions? Will the doctrine endure or will it collapse under the practical test?
That dystopias feel cleaner is kinda worrying statement in my eyes. It’s not that they’re cleaner but it’s usually the recognizable issue that’s been dialed to 11, or perhaps what will happen when the Genie is out of the bottle… does the story grapple with the possible solution or it’s a simply a cynical take of the writer behind the curtain?
There is something to the the mindset of the author and what or how do they want to tell. Without a doubt the current “Zeitgeist” also plays on their mindset and what sort of a story or perhaps a scenario they’re setting up.
Because a book that’s as depressing as the real world isn’t fun to read.
Probably easier to show how bad thing is if everything else is still kind of ok.
Maybe its just my reading preferences, but I don’t know that I agree that they are optimistic generally speaking. A lot of what I have read tends to be either picking up the pieces from the fall of humanity or a warning on human arrogance and hubris. Usually you have some kind of humanity ending issue that gets resolved but usually has an element of sacrifice or loss in getting to that resolution. Ive always found sci fi to be a “this is how terrible it could be if we dont hande X issue correctly, but at least there will be people like the protagonist who will try and do the right thing”. I think if you took away that optimistic resolution to some of these plots, they wouldn’t be very compelling as a read. I think to more directly answer your question, these stories are often trying to make a point. Some of the ones I’ve enjoyed most tend to do a better job of incorporating the death by a thousand cuts you describe but are ultimately trying to say something about a specific issue. I think its also hard to argue that our modern time isn’t better than the past. That’s not to say its perfect or that there isn’t suffering, but if we were to describe our lives to someone from a thousand years ago, they might feel that our current world is fairly ‘optimistic’ as well.
This could definitely be some bias on my choices though so grain of salt lol.
Aren’t people in general optimistic?
