Theme: Build a Better Future

One of the things I've been interested in for the past 10 years or so (really much longer, but I was less self-aware at the time), is progress.


Technology is Advancing Rapidly


From communication to transportation to labor, we are hurtling towards a new future. And this fascinates me. The internet, and it's byproducts, has changed how people interact with almost everything within my life time.  I've seen how facebook and other social media has changed how we socialize. Amazon and like websites have changed how we buy things, or how we research what we're going to buy and what we're willing to pay for it.  Smartphones, putting us in constant communication with this world of information, have changed how we learn and how we behave around one another. Even cell phones before that didn't become commonplace within the last twenty years.


And it's not just on a personal level.


Those examples are ones you see every day, but it affects business too.  As a writer, the idea that I can write an rpg adventure, or a book, or any other written word product, go online, upload it, and have it available for the masses to purchase and/or download is amazing, and it's not something we could do before. It is easier than ever to get ideas and products out there.  Independent people can make crafts and sell them through etsy or similar pages. Overall, people are able to connect to do business better than ever before.


And technology is helping business in even more ways. Production, automation, all things that are improving and making it cheaper and easier to supply products and services. Not to mention creating new products and services to sell.


But, what's the cost?


As we hurtle towards the future, a lot of times people work towards progress without looking at the consequences, or working towards solutions for them.


As self-driving cars develop, it's going to replace millions of jobs that people hold based on transportation (from taxis to shipping). Fast food restaurants are looking to replace their cashiers with automated alternatives. Grocery stores already have self-checkouts, and many are developing technologies to make these easier and more automated.  All this leads to one of the biggest problems that we're going to be facing in the future: there are going to be way fewer jobs than there are people.  For those people, it means living on government subsidies and/or living with a low quality of life.  For businesses, it will mean fewer consumers to buy their products.


(As a side note, less related to automization replacing jobs, but more related to how our current job/economic culture is affecting people's interaction as consumers: Why Aren't Millennials Buying Diamonds)


Other things that are being developed that we aren't considering the consequences to include but aren't limited to: Virtual Reality (and it's affect on the human mind in terms of distinguishing between reality and fantasy as well as desensitization), efforts to make computers that think like humans and/or to "upload" human consciousness, and the ability for the wealthy to genetically modify their offspring before giving birth.


This is fascinating.


I am very pro-progress. I think all of these technologies are great things.  However, I also think it's important to figure out how to deal with the unintended consequences and the ethics of things.  And I don't think we're effectively doing so. Or, the people who are studying the effects of these things and who are developing ideas and plans aren't being listened to by the more progressive businesses looking to develop the technology and profit from it quickly.


This informs a lot of what I write.


The idea of progress and it's unintentional effects is one of the core themes that is present across a very large number of things I've written, going all the way back to Anti-Spy and The Saga of Redshot, two "novels" that I wrote in middle school; the first rough drafts I ever completed.


And it is central to Heroism and Other Lies


If there is one central theme to the Heroism and Other Lies series, it is trying to use progress and technology to Build a Better Future.  The organization that the main character used to belong to, as well as at least one other, were a part of an initiative with this goal (creatively called the Build a Better Future initiative.)


Every book or episode will continue to delve deeper into potential future technologies and their potential effects on society and the people in it, both positive and negative. In his heroing efforts, Joe will have to work against the effects of some technologies, while having to rely on others.  All in all, it should be an interesting look into things.


More on other themes in my work, as well as on Heroism and Other Lies is sure to come in future posts.


P.S.


In it's first 48 hours of publication, my first published RPG adventure (The Machine God's Temple) has sold 10 copies. It's not a ton, but I'm happy with it. It's about as good as I could have expected for a third party adventure published in a system that's secondary in popularity to the bigger systems like Pathfinder or D&D.  I hope I continue to get some steady sales with it.