Fiction or Real Life? What Sci-Fi can teach us about today's politics

Fiction writers, especially science fiction writers, perform an extremely valuable service for our society beyond providing endless fun for 10-year-old geeky kids. By writing about "things that might be," they encourage us to think outside the box, consider unlikely or unpopular possibilities, and think through scenarios that could affect our current and future lives. All of us live in the world of science fiction. We are transported into the future one second at a time and must constantly adapt and adjust to our new world. Businesses, governments and military experts must adapt to new ways of thinking or risk becoming obsolete. Many of our most successful entrepreneurs became billionaires by taking quick and bold advantage of new technologies and developing futuristic products and services we all now take for granted.