|
Politics in sci-fi are ready for a makeover.
In Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth (I think it was that one), he depicted the government of the U.S. A. at its tricentennial as using a computer program to choose the President every 4 years. Most Presidents, not having political aspirations, and mainly not wanting to go down in history as being a total f***up, did their best to do a good job in office.
In a number of my books, I've hinted at (but not provided detail for) a government centered around a computer program that analyzed the country's stats and needs and made the top-level decisions, and it was up to human representatives to carry them out. I called it a Logocracy.
Of course, sci-fi has given us a lot of the present government forms. Even in Star Trek's supposedly "utopian" future, we have seen corrupt politicians (and Starfleet officers). We've also seen utopias, dystopias, and corporatocracies, run by humans, robots, and occasionally by aliens. But rarely do they turn out to be benign... even the utopias are generally considered "stagnant." Or the best governments, even when they can work, are usually staffed with idiots.
Why can't sci-fi depict working, desirable governments?
|