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FAILED_FUTURES

                                             August 29, 2025


  I've got a "near future" SF scenario in mind
  for a project that's been on the back burner
  for several years now, but I have a hard time
  *believing* in the scenario and getting it to
  work, because of the way current events keep       Charles Stross talks
  undercutting all our expectations about how        about this problem-- e.g.
  the world is going to be...                        he can't see writing
                                                     jokey "conspiracy"
      Just to pick a detail: my scenario             premises in a world where
      involves a fad with a subculture               half the populace deeply
      that wears masks.  Then Covid comes            believes in some of the
      along: do masks mean the same thing            weakest ones imaginable.
      they used to?  What will they mean
      in a few decades?  Now we've got
      raids my masked forces claiming to
      be ICE-- what is that going to do
      the way people think about masks?

                                  This millenium has seen all the
                                  chaos monkeys loosed from the
                                  cages, kicking over the houses of
                                  cards at every opportunity.

                                     Every hope, even every frame of
                                     understanding keeps getting damaged
                                     or destroyed.

                                             LOST_HOPES


          I've been up against this problem
          before, at various times.             RAT3

          Writing a serious SF story
          involves a leap of faith, a
          speculation about which
          speculations will seem
          reasonable a few years hence.

          Science Fiction used to be one of the
          few places that embraced the idea that
          fundamental change was possible.

          Now Science Fiction requires a belief in
          stability, a deep belief that the current
          chaos is just temporary, and will
          eventually recede into a world enough
          like the present that residents of the
          present can write about it.


   I find myself trying to believe in "The Reset",
   a world that looks back to a moment when we             THE_RESET
   finally pushed through the chaos and found
   the old dreams renewed...


      Looking at the way many people are feeling so
      bleak these days, I've been reaching for             When I'm the
      reminders that we may yet recover for all this--     optimist in the
                                                           room, you know
                                                           we're in trouble.
          2025: the year of renewal.

                The year we hit            FUTURE_VISTAS
                bottom and recover.

                                                     (The year BTS
                                                     gets back
                                                     together.)



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