Catching the Watcher | NaNoWriMo 2012 | Day 11

Onwards and upwards into the black!

  • Target Word Count 50,000 Target Average Words Per Day 1,667
  • Words Written Today 2,701
  • Total Words Written 21,771
  • Current Day 11
  • Average Per Day 1,979
  • Words Remaining 28,229
  • Days Remaining 20
  • At This Rate I Will Finish On November 25, 2012
  • Words Per Day To Finish On Time 1,412

So someone might ask what is the world like in the 2060’s and how do I know? To which I reply I obviously cannot know, look at what the smart futurists in 1960 thought the world would be like in the 21st century…for example 2001 (still the best(only) ‘hard’ sci fi movie ever.)

Turn the question around, what was the world like in 1960, transistor just invented, first men in space.  But those who were adults in the think of it had grown up during an incredible step change in technology over twenty years and they expected it to continue.. Of course many of the technologies that had gone through that step change had pretty much peaked out (the 737 flew first time only a few years later, the B52 was in service.) But technology they thought was peaking (computers, radios, etc) were really only on the ramp towards immense changes. Then if you look twenty years on 1980 and twenty years on again 2000, you get some idea of the ramps of change in tech and society. You also get the randomization of events in the real world; tsunami’s, revolutions, wars, demagogues, political movements, etc.

What I try to do is pick the tech, economic social and political ramps looking at 10,15,20 year slices and wrap that all up and come up with a history that makes some sense of the background of the story I am telling.  It’s not perfect and I do not expect any of my predictions to come true, but its fun and interesting to think about.

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