Technological Innovation In Neil Armstrong's 'The Minority Report'
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Over the years, technological innovation has fundamentally changed the way in which modern societies (and the world in the more general sense) functions. As scientific research and experimentation increases, those ideas that may have been implausible at one point have become real. For example, there was a time in which the notion of having man traveling to outer space and landing on the moon was borderline heresy. However, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969, and since then there have been various space missions that have allowed society to gain a comprehensive understanding of Earth, the space, and even the universe. Understanding what has driven men to extend the existing boundaries separating fantasy from reality…show more content… While not a prerequisite, most Sci-Fi works are set in the future. This opens endless possibilities for authors to imagine different worlds and different technologies that condition social, economic, political, and even cultural dynamics. Setting stories in the future denies audiences the possibility of dismissing any of the elements included in the narrative. It is impossible to dismiss or deny the possibility of something that is set in the future; there is no way of knowing if technological innovation will at one future point allow for those imaginings to become reality. For example, the short story “The Minority Report,” published originally in 1956, introduced a new policing institution known as Precrime and as its name suggests, it was a predictive policing system that allowed for detaining and convicting individuals intending to commit a crime before the crime was actually committed. Worth mentioning is that audiences can accept such propositions as being plausible because apart from being set in the future, they are perceived as relevant to present times; this establishes a connection between the present and the future that interests the public (Csicsery-Ronay 6). This means that future imaginings are accepted when they are grounded in the present and have value for present