If you’re a science fiction writer, beware.
Whatever great and novel ideas you come up with — however creative, however brilliant, however stupid, and however evil, and no matter how many warnings you write along with the idea, or how dire the consequences for your characters — someone in the scientific community will probably take it upon themselves to try to make it happen. They’ll often be backed by government think tanks and massive budgets drawn from your taxes. And they’ll often succeed.
Don’t believe me? Take a look back at some of the classic sci-fi, go read an anthology from the 70’s or 80’s and note how many of the things written have been done, despite the warnings. Brave New World? Absolutely.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t write. Chances are if you thought it up someone else already has, or will eventually, and whatever it is will likely be tried anyway. But you should be aware of the trend… before you write that novel that’s been spinning around in your head, or before you publish it at least, you might want to ask yourself how bad you’ll feel if 10, 20, 30 years from now you wake up to find it as reality on the front page of your favorite news journal.
Will you forever wonder if the damage done was spurred by your book?
Then again, awesome stuff happens too. Tablet computers, for example. Also, stuff we take for granted, like nylon, is discovered while researching some unrelated far-fetched idea.
For all of the bad that could be and is, there’s also a lot of good due to imagination.
Quite true. Even the medication that’s been a miracle-drug for me was made as a commercial solvent lol. Thanks for the comment :)