Why our world needs science fiction: Etienne Augé at TEDxErasmusUniversity

thank you very much very pleased to be here tonight thank you for your welcome applause I'm very curious do me a favor guys who among you don't like science fiction is there people here who don't like science fiction all right yeah that's usually what I get like I told my mother a couple of years ago that I was teaching science fiction at University and she looked at my dad she's yes what did we do wrong with the education there was obviously something very wrong with me teaching science fiction I also do other things also work and research and teach propaganda and public relations and public diplomacy and sometimes it's hard for people to understand what they have in common they had something in common it's the principle of stories stories that can inspire people tonight I'm here to explain to you why science fiction matters but first I'm going to explain to you what science fiction is very Star Trek effect what is science fiction well science fiction is not about predicting the future the future doesn't exist science fiction is here to prevent any invent the future prevent and invent the future preventing the future in a sense that science fiction can tell us the danger that future holds for us but you can also help us invent the future and make sure that the future is without those dangers that I was talking about preventing inventing the future not predicting the central question is science fiction is the following what if it's a very simple question but it's very hard the very complex to answer what if what if for instance we could fly to the moon what if one day we'll meet an alien race what if and some society is able to ask the question what esle societies cannot ask the question same for individuals in science fiction what if is the most important question science fiction studied at the end of the 19th century two important people here two important people the first one is HG Wells it's a British writer among other things he wrote the shape of things to come probably my favorite the other one is your van is French they never met and yet at the end of the 19th century they invented something called science fiction why they never met ever drill vermin a wealth never met now in history when we don't really know how to explain certain coincidence we used the term zeitgeist spirit of the time we borrow from German sometimes and side guys means that well we don't know why but we can explain that it had to happen at this time it had to happen because at the end in the 19th century humanity starting to gain a new faith in technology philosophy and religion were sort of getting all the new ideologies fascism and communism was still a bit young the humanity had this belief that maybe one day technology in science could save us I mentioned that Julian is French now HG Wells's British and this is no coincidence it's no coincidence because before the First World War we have two main empires the French one and the British one the fact that Val is French and that HG Wells is British come also from the fact that those two empires are going to bring civilization to the rest of the world those two nations those two empires will be so powerful that we'll also be able to decide for the future of humanity saying this because it's important to understand that science fiction wasn't born in France and Great Britain by mistake it's not a coincidence thing is after the end of the first war those two empires crumble down and after the Second World War this time two new empires emerge namely Soviet Union the United States and once again it's no coincidence to see that science fiction was extremely strong in both USSR in United States after the Second World War now after the end of the Cold War today there is only one country that is truly leading the world in term of science fiction in producing movies in having writers in science fiction and it's the United States now the fact I would like to mention speaking about future is that those two empires maybe were producing a lot of science fiction but if you look at Nazi Germany in Nazi Germany movies were extremely important to control Society the Nazis produced more than 1000 movies and out of those 1000 movies 11 movies exactly not one science fiction movie was ever produced by the Nazi Germany and we know the fate of this empire now this is what science fiction is about preventing inventing the future now why science fiction is important I'm going to tell you here with three key words innovation profitability and smart power I know that usually science fiction is considered to be something mostly for nerds while living in a basement of their mom maybe you're watching The Big Bang Theory terrible TV show but since fiction I'm afraid so usually sans friction is not repressive well like I said before that science fiction can be extremely important in a society well first of all science fiction has the power of liberating imagination somebody said maybe Einstein that imagination is more important than knowledge imagination is crucial especially in science fiction because if you imagine something then maybe you have the power to make it come true if you imagine something then maybe it will come true later that's the power of imagination the first innovation I would like to mention is the robot now robot have been an idea for quite some time especially in Europe the idea that you can have something not made of flesh but made of bio of made of made of chemical components could actually replace humans but the first one to say to actually give robots their name is Karel Capek in a Czech Republic catcha back in 1920 coined the term robots which means servants or slave in Czech and it was the first one to consider that maybe one day the robots will help us that maybe one day they will be they will save humankind in a sense that they will replace us but for the greater good another science fiction writer developed the concept of robotics in its Isaac Asimov this guy is probably the closest you can you can find of a genius in science fiction he was a professor at university doesn't qualify him to be a genius but he wrote more than 500 books on pretty much all the subjects and is mostly well known for his trilogy about the robots and in this trilogy seamoth is developing the Three Laws of Robotics explaining the interaction between robots and humans in efforts here valonda robot because I also want to emphasize on the fact that catch a pack inventing the term robot as him of inventing the laws of robotics and today in pretty much all university or places where people research robotics those laws written by science fiction writers are still used now innovation the tablets many of you guys are using a tablet and the concept actually comes from a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy in 1979 he didn't look at like an iPad yet but it was a book that supposedly contain all the knowledge of the universe all the knowledge of the universe in 1979 in 2010 we have the iPad once again if you can imagine it then maybe you can make it you can make it happen you can invent the future another example for the Trekkies the smartphone now Star Trek I don't know if you're familiar with Star Trek but they are always using some kind of smartphone to communicate between sparker the enterprise and whatnot and they were the first one to use the smartphone but the communication function what's also interesting as you can see on this image here is that they also use their smartphone to monitor the health of aliens also of the member of the out of the crew of the enterprise and a few weeks ago Samsung released this first smartphone which you can use to communicate but also to monitor your own health once again if you can imagine it maybe you will happen now why science fiction profitable science fiction is very profitable here you can see Will Smith you probably know Will Smith you remember that he was a rapper and then he was in a TV show The Fresh Prince of bel-air I want porn just like many rappers he wanted to be a series actor like Justin Timberlake and so he study Hollywood he studied a Hollywood they actually discovered that the most profitable movies in Hollywood are science fiction movies I put here the list of the most the 15 most profitable movies of Hollywood actually the 15 most profitable movies of all time and if you got them I put in white I put the science-fiction movie half of the 15 movies are science fiction the other half is fantasy only two movies will become Chernobyl Titanic and Skyfall which is honestly more science fiction than real life so Will Smith study them Hollywood discovered that if you wanted to be a bankable actor you had to perform in science fiction movies and that's why he gave us beautiful movies like after Earth recently now smart power smart power the idea that sometime you can combine hard power and soft power together for governance this is the real this is the story of the real Star Wars probably seen Star Wars in 1977 when the movie was released it was a huge head to say the least and it was such a you see that everybody was talking about Star Wars and there was a convention of science fiction writers that took place and one of them said this always worries it wouldn't be cool to have like a real Star Wars and when he said that everybody around he was like yeah dude that would be totally cool but one person one person was very interested by what he had to say and this person was the assistant of Ronald Reagan he came back spoke to Reagan you know Reagan X actor very good in communication understand the power of a good story to inspire people and Reagan gave in 83 the Star Wars speech when he explained that now America had to win the race to space the other race to space they got beaten by the Russians once it will not happen again and the idea of Star Wars of the real Star Wars was called a Strategic Defense Initiative the Strategic Defense Initiative SDI or Star Wars was simple the Americans would put lasers in the sky in order to intercept Russian missiles the for billions of dollars to research the possibility of using lasers to destroy the missiles before they will be destroyed the thing is the store is half through an hour wrong as usual in a sense that they invested they research the real Star Wars but their research never became conclusive on the other hand the Soviets heard about the SDI and they had to beat the Americans once again on the race to space so they also poured billions and billions of dollars researching the own SDI except they didn't have those billions and billions of dollars now Star Wars is not what ended the Cold War but probably it contributed to the end of Cold War that's also the power sense fiction its profitable its innovative and when it comes to governance it's also something extremely important for governments it inspires people about their future now one country that is quite challenged when it comes to science fiction is the Netherlands I did some research and it seems that Netherlands you have one or two movies about science fiction of all the movies that the Dutch produce only two movies regard science fiction and only seven science fiction writers in the Netherlands now don't get me wrong my Dutch friends I'm not saying that the Netherlands is bad or it's a bad brand quite the opposite see I put a picture of the medals of the of the Dutch medals because I was very impressed and I truly believe that the Netherlands is a great brand and I'm not the only one we think that the Netherlands is a great brand I put here a few rankings what that I'm extremely proud of is that the Netherlands is the third best country in the world when it comes to higher education number one in the United States number two United Kingdom number three the Netherlands but the thing is the Netherlands is a small country I would say so far so good very good rankings everything is peachy everything is fine but when it comes to future you have more and more challenge first of all the Netherlands is a small country small country it's challenged by many things doesn't have natural resources the population is aging so the Netherlands has more and more challenges in the future maybe we don't feel them right now maybe everything is great because we also get so many gold medals but in the future maybe the Netherlands would be at stake so tonight I have a modest proposal for the Dutch government and this is my proposal speaking about science fiction science fiction in the Netherlands in the Netherlands you know that the public and the private sectors work together they do work together and is doing pretty well so my modest proposal when it comes to science fiction would be that the Dutch government would initiate science fiction initiators encouraging the study of science fiction encouraging the writing of science fiction encouraging more science fiction also more interaction between people who imagine science fiction and people were able to turn science fiction into two objects two artifacts and pave the way to the future science fiction is something quite serious science fiction is something that also helped us again invent the future would be fantastic to see that the Netherlands the small tiny country in Europe would be actually instead of being a follower would become a word leader these thanks to science fiction now this is my talk for tonight this is why science fiction matters I hope that you enjoy it I'm it a no J and I will be seeing you in a future thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 46,266

Rating: 4.856698 out of 5

Keywords: Fiction, Furture, tedx talk, ted talk, tedx, ted talks, ted, Etienne, Science, tedx talks, TEDx, Auge, Erasmus, ted x

Id: FJkixvgJqsY

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 23 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

honestly that was a great talk