“I do expect that the longer-term things will be things that don’t feel like science fiction at all, but things like recognizing that the systems we had in place before were not community-oriented enough,” he said.
In the real world today, he said, uncertainty surrounds not only those with coronavirus but the millions who are losing their jobs and therefore their employer-provided health insurance. In his book, the government responded to the pandemic with a stimulus package that gave health care to all the people infected. Will the entertainment economy no longer support Captain America?īut the largest, most meaningful impact Scalzi anticipates is our society taking a hard look at how we structure health care and weigh it against other parts of society. This could change how musicians who rely heavily on touring are paid, or massive Hollywood blockbusters that depend on packed theaters to profit off quarter-billion dollar investments. “That is going to be something in the immediate term that is going to reshape how we do thing socially, and the longer term may have an implication for what it means to own a restaurant, what it means to do a concert.” “Any place there’s a high density of people, it then becomes the issue of do I really want to be here especially because in the next couple of years at least there is always a chance of a new flare-up.”ĬORONAVIRUS: What we are scared - and hopeful - about right now In the interview with the Dayton Daily News, Scalzi wondered how long it would be before people would feel comfortable cramming into concert halls, bars or science-fiction conventions. “In the end, though, I suspect a simple wave ‘hello’ will do the trick: an acknowledgment and a sign of potential friendship and an understanding that sometimes a little distance is kind, not rude,” he wrote. In a Washington Post piece, Scalzi wrote about being on a cruise ship full of sci-fi geeks when the virus started spreading and wondering with fellow passengers if handshakes would be forever replaced with elbow bumps, the Vulcan greeting or Wakanda salute. “What I think is eventually going to happen is, and what I have happen in the books is, at the end of it all when the infection rates drop and people start coming out of their homes, we’re going to find there is a new normal that is not exactly 100 percent like it was before but is something that everybody can go: ‘OK, we can get on with our lives.’” RELATED: A Q&A with sci-fi author John Scalzi So the Dayton Daily News asked Scalzi to play the part of a futurist and consider how this historical moment might reshape society. But our current situation feels, for many, like a dystopian book or movie.
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