Cyberpunk predicted in the early 1980s that people would one day live in a world that looked very much like the 1990s. Its authors – led by William Gibson – did this primarily by taking the temperature of the world around them and just predicting the worst non-apocalyptic future they could. It was also the most successfully predictive science fiction movement ever.
Read MoreLet us look at nostalgia itself, because nostalgia is what we’re taking aim at here. The pain of homecoming. Let us take a more medical or therapeutic approach. If we view being a Nostalgiac as a bad thing, what is the treatment for it? What is the plan of action for rehabilitation?
Read MoreBut all of this is beside the point: the fact that we can pick out two dominant aesthetics in the visual media form of what is supposed to be a “literature of ideas” is a problem. It indicates, if anything, a lack of ideas. If our options are just a visual vocabulary iteration of the old Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate that no one but the people having it are interested in, we've got problems.
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