Writing Prompt: What should technology look like in the future?
It's a battle of the high-tech and anti-tech utopias!
Fantasy novels typically imagine a pastoral paradise free of technology, while science fiction novels typically imagine a high-techtopia powered by futuristic technologies. But what role do you think technology should play in the future?
For our October prompt, it’s a battle of anti-tech and high-tech utopias! Write a story that takes place in your ideal technological future. Publish your short story by the end of October and share a link to it here:
I can’t wait to read your visions for technology. Mine is coming soon!
Thanks so much for participating!
Responses to invent an afterlife
Here are the responses to my most recent writing prompt to invent an afterlife.
wrote “Am I Dead?”, an incredibly moving afterlife experience in which we learn that maybe the life we return to after we die is much more real than the life we once lived. It actually turned into a beautiful series! I highly recommend checking out part two, Into The Wonderland, part three, “Flying on the Orange Planet”, and part four, “Reunion in the Sky City!” wrote The Amethyst Project, a haunting future where brains can be stored so that people can enjoy eternal life, even if their bodies can’t.
wrote “The Great Day of His Wrath,” which wasn’t exactly utopian, but definitely nailed those biblical notes!“Let me get this straight,” I said to Flora. “You will take my brain out of this failed old body and plug it in to your machine. I will then think, feel and experience life as I was a hundred years ago?”
Flora nodded with her head slightly on one side, just like she used to. “Correct. And the AI programme will do whatever you want it to – all the things that perhaps you longed to achieve, but never managed. Go into space? No problem. Star in a bestselling feature reel? It can happen.”
“And me and the family?” Petal asked. “Will we still be able to see Dad?”
“Of course, you can log into his AI world any time you want, and be a part of his life. Your father will never die; you can talk to him in real time whenever you want.
We wretched of the earth will come to know the end and the beginning and the tenebrous land betwixt the two. The unimaginable chaos of an old world dying and the order of a new world being born.
A good observation. In our SolarPunk Stories Manifesto we say "Yes to Tech, No to Technocracy" https://www.solarpunkstories.com/our-manifesto
I hope that in the future tech continues to make space for us to do the things that make us happy (as opposed to just enabling us to more efficiently do things we don’t enjoy). For example, that it helps us connect with those we care about and have time to do so, instead of making spreadsheets accessible from the bathtub or something.
Sustainability, as you’ve been exploring, is also important - both in terms of the materials and also across our lives. How can we get to a place where tech enables our authentic lives?