I mean... the one first 1950s sci-fi story I ever read as a kid was The Sound of Thunder. It is and will always be the first thing I think about when it comes to 50s sci-fi. And that story isn't exactly happy or optimistic about humanity fucking around with tech and time, lol.

The more I learn about our modern age, the more I start to feel that the premise of the Matrix isn't such a bad deal at all. Normally, we should be there by now, the machine war ended decades ago.

I think she's right. There is certainly a space in fiction for depressing dystopias, but personally, I think that it is also important to make space for hopeful stories about the future. Else it's just too dark. Our news are depressing, our lives are depressing. Our fiction is depressing. If there isn't much positive stuff to look forward to, then what's the point? In the 1930s, 40s and 50s where war and crisis and recovery was on the menu, fiction tended to be more comforting and hopeful.

That's why Disney's Snow White was such a massive success in 1937. It gave people a break from their lives and allowed them to dream themselves away to a different world where everything was a bit simpler, where the downtrodden, yet hardworking and kind herione is rewarded for her efforts in the end. Many people may nor have had that happy ending themselves, but it must have given them some hope to watch a film about someone just like them who managed to pull through in the end and have her worth validated.

Our phones are just screens wirelessly attached to computers the size of buildings now. If Altman and Nvidia get their way data centers be the size of sport stadiums by next year.

People are confusing optimism with naiveté. The old sci-fi assumed the rate of progress with be constant or even accelerate. They saw people got to space and moon in what? 20 years? So they thought we will get to Mars by the end of century and beyond our solar system some time after that. They didn't predict the end of Cold War and massive disinvestment from space exploration. But there were plenty of pessimistic takes on the future. In Bladerunner all the animals are dead, in Alien everything is run by evil corporations, in Battlestar Galactica everyone dies, in Star Wars whole worlds are destroyed, apocalyptic visions are common. Getting the dates wrong is not the same as being optimistic.

Foundation is also a sort of techno feudal society.

Hey, my phone can do a lot just being the size of a phone. Running games, reading, voice synthesis and recognition, image and text generation, etc

The old sci-fi assumed the rate of progress with be constant or even accelerate.

https://xkcd.com/893/

Meanwhile, Asimov: We'll have robots that will help us accomplish crazy shit but stupid zealots will keep whining about it and holding them back

This is in no way relevant to anything that's happening today.

never watched the original series but if you're talking about the reimagined series BSG technically doesn't belong in the list. don't want to spoil why.

as a kid i was so convinced, near the end of 90s i thought "maybe there are huge advancements made but they're saving it for the year 2000 so it'll be bombastic like people have expected."

instead we got fucking segway lol

I also never watched original BSG but I assumed the part about aliens blowing up everything and the war with robots in general was still there.

yeah but that's not the relevant part. the list is about pessimistic takes on the future.

also star wars takes place a long time ago so technically that doesn't belong either

I haven't seen SNW, from what I've seen(clips/reviews) it's probably the most spirited successor to fit todays viewers.

now take that and replace "robots" with "shareholders". perspective of every single big shareholder today.

I think that global war with machines and death of most of the population is quite a pessimistic take on the future.

did you not watch the finale?

I don't know what you're getting at. It was a show about war. It was grim. It's not a optimistic take on the future. I don't care if it had happy ending or if technically it was set in the past.

Old sci-fi assumed progress in the physical world, of endless progress in speed or materials.

Instead we got near endless progress in the processing of information while we live in houses made of trees, drive cars on rubber tires, and eat animals. Much like before. Sure, we have jets, but even they work pretty much the same way as 50 years ago. Incremental progress, sure, but no warp drive, eh?

I used to wonder if I would ever walk on the moon or Mars during my lifetime when I was a kid. I miss that