Charles Stross on tech oligarchs trying to build the torment nexus:

"SF authors such as myself are popular entertainers who work to amuse an audience that is trained on what to expect by previous generations of science-fiction authors. We are not trying to accurately predict possible futures but to earn a living: any foresight is strictly coincidental."

The CIA famously funded the Iowa Writers' Workshop to guide American literature in a non-didactic, less revolutionary direction. I wonder if there's a future in funding science fiction writers to create stories with more utopian themes for leaders to draw inspiration from in the future. #Culture