Great books, and a great theme 😋

Have you heard of David Brin's idea of the Self-Preventing Prophecy?

One of the most powerful novels of all time, published fifty years ago, foresaw a dark future that never came to pass. That we escaped the destiny portrayed in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four may be owed in part to the way his chilling tale affected millions, who then girded themselves to fight “Big Brother” to their last breath.

In other words, Orwell may have helped make his own scenario not come true.

The linked article goes on to discuss this in greater detail. It's a really interesting idea, that by penning these books, and the wide reading of them, their influence of the cultural imagination can actually inoculate us from them.

Brin is great sci-fi writer in his own right, and while he generally deal with optimistic futures, he does so often through the prism of disaster. In Existence for example, he goes into detail of what he terms "failure modes" if I remember correctly.