Depictions of the future abound in popular culture. This is because it’s fun to predict what the unseen holds. We love to speculate on the outcomes of our present actions. We are all fascinated with what the future holds. As a young boy, I enjoyed watching futuristic science fiction. At that time, the sight of Martian invaders, spacecraft dogfights, and societal oppression didn’t stir my mind into thinking why the depictions of the future lean toward the negative side. As I grew older, it occurred to me that dystopia is a popular theme in science fiction.

Uncontrolled population, terrorism, environmental degradation, artificial intelligence, authoritarian governments, discrimination—all these topics trigger our imaginings for a bleak future.

And yet you may ask, “What about a brighter future? Aren’t we all working for a solution to the world’s problems for the sake of posterity?”

Who doesn’t want to live in a world free from war and poverty? Who doesn’t want to be part of a society that doesn’t judge you based on your gender, ethnicity, or religion? The variables of our present actions can swerve into different possibilities. The irony is that we strive to make a perfect world, yet we as human beings are not perfect. This is why, at some point, Murphy’s Law is bound to crop up.

On account of different variables, a utopian future is highly possible. It all depends on how hopeful you are about the present leading to a brighter future. Moreover, we have made a quantum leap in making our lives more convenient.

And yet, many writers prefer to depict a dystopian future. Merriam-Webster defines dystopia as an imaginary place where people are unhappy and usually afraid because they are not treated fairly. Utopia, on the other hand, is the opposite in which it’s a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and societal conditions.

In a utopian world, tensions and crises don’t exist, while a dystopian world is rife with societal oppression.  So in these two contrasting societies, where would the writer find meatier and suspenseful story arcs?

However, writing about a bleak future is not just about illustrating through words how people in the future function with restraints as dictated by arbitrary powers that control their lives. It’s not just about depicting a vandalized environment where people fight one another for scarce resources. These scenarios are scary, and they might even trigger chronophobia. We hear that we should make use of our power to choose wisely, so why do we prefer to write about dystopian fiction?

Dystopian fiction mirrors sordid realities

George Orwell’s 1984 centers on the consequences of government overreach, totalitarianism and mass surveillance to repress citizens under the iconic slogan, “Big Brother is watching you.”

Dystopian fiction keeps an eye on current issues and interprets its malignancy in epidemic proportions. China, for example, is exercising mass surveillance on its citizens. Closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) are installed in every street corners and sidewalks monitoring passersby coupled with artificial intelligence software that quickly identifies a citizen by face recognition alone. Could this lead to a 1984 scenario? Only the future can tell.

Scott Westerfield’s Uglies depicts a society where everyone is made beautiful by the wonders of cosmetic surgery. At present, people undergo surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures like breast augmentation, liposuction, nose reshaping, eyelid surgery, and tummy tuck.