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Articles

The Dominant Narratives of Future Societies

Ernest Dempsey on what sci fi stories say about the stories controlling our lives.

Curiosity is instinctive to life-forms with complex nervous systems. Humans, for example, tend to quest for knowledge. One of the fruits of knowledge is technology, the practical application of knowledge to satisfy various needs. Yet technology influences human society not only materially, but also culturally and existentially, and as it transforms society it raises a number of challenges. For instance, just as different groups – geographical, racial, or cultural – sometimes clash over the control of natural resources, people also tend to experience similar conflict over control of advanced technology.

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