# Scientists, Engineers, and Economists should write more science fiction Intuitive claim: Science fiction would be better if it were written by trained SEE. Unintuitive claim: Scientists, Engineers, and Economists would be *more effective* by creating science fiction. * [[Good science fiction can enable more awesome sci-fi shit]] * [[Scientists, Engineers, and Economists have the tools to write Good science fiction]] * [[You can use science fiction to explore a future world in a way that nonfiction cannot]] * [[Fiction \/ Science Fiction\/ Historical Fiction are a way of exploring counterfactuals]] * [[Presenting predictions as science fiction is intellectually honest]] * [[Science fiction is a powerful tool for transmitting science or economic ideas]] Even more cool than SEE exploring ideas through science fiction would be if people with *different* views on the same subject wrote sci fi in the same world with the same conceits. An idea rap battle. If done poorly this could, of course, devolve to “Yeah well my spaceship blew up your planet.” “Yeah well my giant space protozoa ate your spaceship.” In a way the discipline of scenario planning is like science fiction for Serious People™. ([[What role does scenario planning have in technological program design?]]) It explores different future possibilities contingent on different events (conceits? 🤔) The line between science fiction and scenario planning seems like it could become very small. * The dual of this note is [[Treating Science Fiction as case studies from a future history]] ### Some examples of scientists, engineers, and economists who have written science fiction * [[The Voice of the Dolphins]] by [[Leo Szilard]] * Anything by [[Arthur C. Clarke]] * [[Verner Vinge]] * [[Isaac Asimov]] * [[Carl Sagan]] * [[Robert Heinlein]] * [[Russ Roberts]] hasn’t written science fiction, but has written fiction illustrating economic concepts ### Related * [[Definiteness means that you have a long-term plan]] * [[Program design is like performance debugging a vision]] * [[The role of a visionary is to bootstrap the new from the old]] * [[Definite optimism requires both a vision and evidence that we are on a trajectory to reach it]] * [[X-punk imagines a world dominated by X]] * [[Feedback loops and play are important for breakthroughs]] <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Scientists,+Engineers,+and+Economists+should+write+more+science+fiction) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Scientists,+Engineers,+and+Economists+should+write+more+science+fiction)