A to Z April Challenge 2015 Theme Reveal – Science Fiction Today

We’ve been kind of quiet about this fact, because we were making sure we could commit to it. We built our list, and we’re doing it! The April A to Z Challenge! If you want to know more about the challenge, you can find out on their website: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Our Survivor Badge from last year!

We did this challenge last year, focusing on our Character Studies. We blogged about a character a day, from throughout geekdom. There were a few franchises where we could almost have done all the characters from – like Final Fantasy – but we decided on the broader topics as that was more fun and allowed more people to be involved. And involved you were! There are lots of bloggers involved in the A to Z Challenge, and a lot announcing their themes today – find that list here!

Science Fiction Today!

Maybe the number one topic that we have more ideas for than blog posts we have written, our Science Fiction Today posts are our way of talking about politics and current events without talking about them in the normal sort of way.

First, there is the idea of Wicked Problems. They are large problems where there is not necessarily a “right” answer, or, if there is, we don’t know what that answer is! Most of these problems exist in the political sphere where, because there is no right answer, opinions, beliefs, philosophy, and the other aspects of partisan thought enter into the mix.

You can read more about Wicked Problems, and how we like to approach them, here: https://comparativegeeks.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/geek-501-science-fiction-today/

TL;DR version: we answer today’s problems by not addressing them in today’s terms! Instead, we take them into the future, and through science fiction consider a world where these problems are no longer a problem! Unless of course they become a HUGE PROBLEM!

What the Posts will Look Like

So each post will have a short introduction, laying out the basic problem or our thoughts on the topic. Then, we will look at how future technologies and/or attitudes might make the problem go away. But we also tend to look at what could go wrong (like robots taking over!) or maybe what could happen if the problem isn’t addressed at all. Utopia, and Dystopia.

The posts should be short, sweet, and to the point. We hope you like them! Since we’re keeping them short, please comment and discuss, as there’s definitely going to be more examples we could give, more nuance to the problem, and more angles to consider. Room for discussion!

We are also contributing A to Z posts on Sourcerer for the challenge, along with a whole group of bloggers! Check out Sourcerer and give them a like!

Images copyright the folks at the A-to-Z Challenge. If you want some to use yourself for the challenge, head there and use them: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/to-z-badges-and-banners.html

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