The other day I was reading through a pre-print draft of a book I was asked to contribute to with an afterword. There were some essays in there referring to some of the canons of late twentieth-century science fiction — the era of the cautionary dystopian fiction tale. The worlds we are living in today often echo those speculative visions, raising questions about their relevance and impact.

That got me thinking about the role of science fiction as cultural commentary and what happens when speculative fiction intersects with real-world innovation.

And then I thought about the Star Wars fans who cosplay Darth Maul and Stormtroopers and Vader and I was, like — wait..those are the bad guys, right? Or are they? Is it possible to root for the bad guys if you see them as kinda cool in their shiny black armor and forehead horns and marching around in formation like a bunch of stormtroopers?

Because there’s something undeniably compelling for a particular consciousness about their aesthetic, their power, their presence, their little zippy-do Tie Fighters, long corridors with cool greeble panels with fun levers, theme park garbage chute rides..all before one sees it as The Empire as an undesirable representation of a brutal authoritarian galactic empire.

This got me wondering: what happens when cautionary tales become sources of inspiration rather than warnings? When dystopian fiction becomes a showcase for fascinating possibilities rather than outcomes to avoid?

Suppose the cautionary tale isn’t read as something to be avoided. Suppose it’s read as a playbook?

I think there’s something interesting happening in how we process speculative futures. When science fiction presents compelling visions — even those dark ones — they can feel inevitable rather than conditional. The technology feels something — cool, extraordinary, powerful, exciting. The technology becomes the focus, while the cautionary context fades into background. We see the ‘precogs’ use their enchanted capacity for sensing future events in Minority Report and want to build massive intelligences that anticipate and predict crime; we see the immersive worlds of Ready Player One and want to create AR dispensing with the larger context of the story and its meaning. We see the implications of brain-computer interfaces in stories like Neuromancer and we want to build them before fully grappling with implications.

There’s a creative tension here that I find fascinating and that I realize is integrated into the kinds of futures work I enjoy doing.

On one hand, science fiction has always been a playground for imagining technological possibilities. You haven’t been here long if you haven’t heard me talk about how my own trajectory in engineering and speculative fiction has been shaped by Star Trek — both the show and the technical manual.

On the other hand, many of our most powerful speculative stories were meant as warnings about where those possibilities might lead us if we’re not careful.

This makes me think about how speculation and storytelling can operate within research and development organizations and teams.

What if we focused more on stories that don’t just show us what could go wrong, but actively explore what could go right in a productive tension?

What would hopeful speculation look like? How do we tell stories about technology that inspire us toward better outcomes rather than just more advanced ones?

We tend to assume that traditional storytelling — prose narratives, cautionary tales, speculative fiction — will shape how we think about technology’s future. But those stories will circulate in complicated and unexpected ways, and one can never anticipate the way they shape meaning and consciousness. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is not everyone dystopia. The problem isn’t just that dystopian warnings become instruction manuals; it’s that written stories, however compelling, remain separate from the material world they aspire to inform.

Sometimes a story of possibility is best embedded in other kinds of “material” than prose — in things, ontological contrivances that do something while shaping consciousness in ways different from semantics strung together as a march of words on the page.

This has been the focus of my practice for quite some time now — conjuring systems and prototypes, building companies and communities, creating tools for thinking about the future, writing stories and making films, designing experiences that help people imagine and reflect on possible futures. It’s a continuing experiment in creating entry points to explore possibilities.

A niche example of one of these long experiments: OMATA, the bicycle computer and cycling brand I spent nearly a decade developing. I know, I know..what’s a computer for cyclists have to do with science fiction, futures design, and prototyping more habitable futures? Here’s the thing: while the cycling world assumed ‘computer’ meant a gray rectangular plastic gewgaw with a screen to stare at, I wondered: what if that ‘computer’ could be circular, analog, and as beautiful as the ride? What if technology enhanced rather than replaced our physical connection to the world? The product became an artifact from an alternative present — one where cycling remained visceral and soulful rather than quantified and optimized.

This wasn’t just product development; it was speculative design made tangible. Every morning I had to reconstruct the fiction that cyclists wanted beauty over metrics, that there was a market for technological restraint. I was trying everyday to be, to use Ursula K. Le Guin’s phrase, “a realist of a larger reality” — building toward a world that didn’t yet exist but felt more human than the one we were heading toward. It’s hurts the consciousness to do that in every way you can imagine. But hard is the work of expanding reality and pushing the contours of the possible.

I don’t think there’s just one way forward, and I don’t expect any single story to shape our future. But stories are powerful tools for exploring possibilities and shaping our collective imagination — and those “stories” don’t have to be prose. They can be prototypes, experiences, systems. Whatever form shapes our understanding and opens our imagination.

I’m increasingly interested in narratives — in objects and experiences and not just words — that help us navigate toward positive futures — stories that don’t just warn us away from dystopia, but actually light a path toward something worth building.