Predicting The Future
People don’t change; technology changes, but people remain the same. Each of us is driven by Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs, (Air, water, food, shelter, security, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization). It hasn’t changed for 70,000 years and won’t change for the next 70,000. What will change is the technology, the tools. Humans are tool makers. Since the first man picked up a club or the first person jumped on the back of a horse, we have continually sought to develop force multipliers, things that make us stronger, faster, at less expense.
So, Science Fiction stories are really about modern man interacting with new technology. How do these new tools in this new situation impact the story? What will our tools, and therefore our capability look like in the future?
If you are going to write a SciFi story, you need to come up with some new technology and how it interacts with your characters. How does their society change because of this new technology? A community made up of independent, physically secure artists and craftsman is vastly different than one made up of a collective of slaves fighting to survive. Their needs are the same, but they are focused at a different level.
When predicting the future think of faster, cheaper ways of doing things and how that will impact society.
