NFTs are the future of science fiction
Do you want our coming digital unrealities to be democratic, decentralised and Disney free?
I recorded this episode of the Science Fiction podcast knowing it would incite the ire of the “techno-conservative” parts of the science fiction community, so included a little dissection of why techno-conservatism is the wrong response.
But I doubt the people who were annoyed by the title of this episode heard it. People react on the basis of headlines, half formed impressions, and what their tribe believes.
That has led many people to entirely mis-assess NFTs. They have been so closely associated with scams and an overinflated market for crap like Bored Apes, that most people believe NFTs are part of our dystopian tech future.
When it’s much more likely that NFTs — or an alternate tech with the same functionality — are part of preventing our tech dystopia.
My audio essay was largely dismissed by people who claimed “digital goods have no value”. Which was a foolish assertion to make while a game like Star Citizen was busy selling $500 million of digital goods (mostly starships) to its players.
I take it as a given that our near future will feature vast, super immersive, virtual worlds that we will all spend a lot of time in. Maybe Star Citizen will be one. Maybe Middle Earth will be realised in 1:1 scale in digital unreality. And these worlds will have internal economies.
The question that NFTs address is really a simple one.
Do you want every single item in the Star Wars galaxy to be owned by Disney corp? Do you want the Mouse to be able to take away your Millenium Falcon on a whim?
Or.
Do you want our coming digital unrealities to be democratic, decentralised and Disney free? Blockchains and NFTs are the technologies that can make option 2 possible.
Now that blockchain and NFTs have exited the hype-cycle stage it’s a good time for creators and storytellers to start thinking about the positive uses of these technologies. I lay out some use cases in the full episode of the Science Fiction podcast.
NOTE — I’m not advising anyone to go and spend $$$ on Bored Ape jpgs, these thoughts are for creators not consumers. If you have questions like “how can a digital item have value if it can be copied” I’m not repeating answers to basic issues here, they can easily be researched.
Subscribe to the podcast in Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/science-fiction/id1530666687
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/303cZ10vZ7kX2zrdnGqXxV
Audible & Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/37a93ee5-a10e-4389-8613-b815c2bd8a6a
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=644462
Podcast player of your choice with the direct RSS feed (Copy and Paste) : https://damiengwalter.com/category/podcast/feed/
Join the Science Fiction community on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324897304599197
