We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus (Strauss)

It's not a coincidence that the boom in planetary romances occured shortly after the American frontier was finally closed: the high frontier had a natural appeal and gradually replaced the western frontier in the popular imagination.

As futurist and SF author Karl Schroeder remarks, every technology has political implications. If you have automobiles you will inevitably find out that you need speed limits, drunk driving laws, vehicle and driver licensing to ensure the cars and their drivers are safe (...). But there's been a tendency in American SF, ever since those early days, to be wilfully blind to the political implications of the shiny toys.

American SF from the 1950s to the 1990s contains all the raw ingredients of what has been identified as the Californian ideology (evangelized through the de-facto house magazine, WIRED). It's rooted in uncritical technological boosterism and the desire to get rich quick.

Did you ever wonder why the 21st century feels like we're living in a bad cyberpunk novel from the 1980s? It's because these guys read those cyberpunk novels and mistook a dystopia for a road map. They're rich enough to bend reality to reflect their desires. But we're not futurists, we're entertainers!