The Distant Future, 30 Years On - Issue 17: Big Bangs
▻http://nautil.us/issue/17/big-bangs/the-distant-future-30-years-on
This year marks three decades since 1984, the titular year of George Orwell’s classic novel. Among the many articles and events marking this anniversary, I was fortunate to participate in one—a panel discussion. It was unusual in a couple of ways. For one thing, it took place among the concert stages and art-filled forests of England’s Latitude Festival. Later in the day, our pavilion was taken over by a rap artist in a feather boa. Rain-soaked revelers in headdresses tripped across the fields outside. Also unusual was that the panel members were scientists and engineers, not historians or politicians. Wasn’t the book really a social commentary, and not a technical one? In re-reading it, I discovered that it was both. In Orwell’s dystopia, the ruling class squanders the unprecedented (...)