Last night I took part in a panel discussion on Who Owns the Story of the Future at the British Library linked to its new exhibition about science fiction, Out of This World (there are more talks in the series too). The other panellists were eminent SF writers Cory Doctorow and William Gibson and technology writer Mark Stevenson. The podcast will be available on the BL site, and there are loads of tweets under #outofthisworld or #ootw. Meanwhile, notes on a couple of the themes that emerged in the hugely stimulating discussion with the audience.

One was about the absence of a dominant narrative about the future at present, in contrast to past eras of techno-optimism, such as the Victorian heyday of the Industrial Revolution or the late 1950s and 60s space-inspired visions. One audience member raised the interesting question of whether this reflects the absence of a dominant global power – perhaps in future there will be another shared story, but one written in Mandarin?

I argued that a sense of progress is vital for a society to make long-term investments and to exercise proper stewardship for future generations (themes of The Economics of Enough). In economics, we model this as the central role of expectations in determining current behaviour. Cory Doctorow objected to the notion of progress, however, describing it as ideological, while William Gibson said belief in progress had been fatally undermined by the realisation that the internal combustion engine, a dominant technology shaping our times, had made possible the next mass extinction of human life on Earth. Mark Stevenson, on the other hand, supported my contention that there are many ways in which genuine progress can be documented, and that the wave of new technologies will bring about more. It was interesting to see the split here between the fiction writers and the non-fiction ones – and a change for me not to be the gloomy economist.

It was a fascinating debate – look out for the podcast. And a treat for me to engage with people who are not economists. I must get out more often! The exhibition is absorbing as well. One of the most powerful exhibits is a copy of the UK Government's notorious 'Protect and Survive' leaflet – I was amazed to read that the plan was to distribute it in 1980, much more recently than I remembered.