So many people still hate science fiction and this surprises me because sf has taken up the mantle that most “serious” literature these days ignores – that of dealing with real actual social issues.

Science fiction plays a role here. SF is one of the most trenchant present-day forms of satire. Harsh truths about our present-day society can be too inflammatory to express outright. But if they’re dramatized within science-fictional worlds, vast numbers of citizens may be willing to absorb them.

For instance, Max Barry’s Jennifer Government has done more to lampoon and illuminate the libertarian ideal end state than all the academic monographs in history.

There are hundreds more examples, of course. Thousands, really.

One wonders, for instance, if the world wide web would have arisen in its present form if it hadn’t been for the popularity of Tolkien and of cyberpunk science fiction. Very many of the programmers were reading both of these sets of novels.

Exactly. The web standards are open and available to all for that very reason. They just as easily could’ve been patented and locked away, and available only for large fees. The inevitable outcome is only inevitable in hindsight.

The foundations of the internet and the web are both fundamentally anti-corporate and anti-capitalistic in nature (though funded by capitalistic enterprises – interesting subversion there) all due to some sf-infused hippie hackers.

Interesting how the world turns.