>The question is why we failed to recognize the warnings when they were delivered.

Numerator = 4

Denominator = Number of successful pieces of fiction exploring ideas about the future from circa 2000.

I should stop reading here and save myself the inevitable wankery that's coming.

edit: I kept reading. I'm not against discussing that fiction. It's the hook that bothers me. It activates my spidey sense for internet content that doesn't go anywhere. I regret being so curt; unfortunately I don't think I was wrong.

I can't lay my hands on the book or regrettably recall the author but there was a university book broadly on the op's topic and simulacrum that crossed into wide spread readership ... beyond academics. One of the lines I remember ran like this: when the currency is BS in an environment of hyper symbolism there can only be one result: hyper BS until it sucks all the oxygen out of room.

How/why'd JD Vance go from cultural heroin to VP? The currency is BS symbolism. And as such doing a 180 is just fine. To all degree there is no underlying reality and little consequence in the land of symbols.

I would have enjoyed the read more if it was just about the three stories and the present, without the hyping. There are many more “masterpieces” that we “didn’t listen to”. It would have been interesting to read more on the background. Who came up with the three narrations? What’s their life story? Did anyone interview them perhaps? Why not try and reach out to them? Without any of that, the post is only mildly interesting.