What's Next for Science Fiction?

I've been thinking about this question lately. I ran across this piece discussing that very thing. I didn't actually find anything in here to comment on.. a lack of content I disagreed with. But it's worth a read.

The Time Machine: How sci-fi calculates the future from The Harvard Independent, by Sam Jack.

What next for science fiction? Science fiction, more than any other literary genre, cannot survive without asking itself that question. Science fiction as we think of it today began with Jules Verne in the 1860s (with Journey to the Center of Earth) and was consummated around the turn of the century by H.G. Wells with a remarkable series of novels that each spawned sub-genres unto themselves. Many of Wells’s novels also came to seem prophetic, some even within his own lifetime; The War in the Air, written a scant five years after the first powered airplane flights, predicted a world war with Germany and Japan as the aggressors that would be largely decided by air power.
Read the rest

Now that I think of it, I do have a comment. I only recently heard of this 'singularity' concept, which is apparently credited to Vernor Vinge. Can anyone recommend a good non-Wikipedia essay or discussion of the topic and/or a good original-ish source about it? Any must-reads out there?

And I'm sure I'll have more to say on the What Next thing in posts to come.

Do You Have a Science Fiction Personality?

This essay (Why Do We Read Science Fiction? Does personality influence reading choice?) by Carol Pinchefsky was published on the Intergalactic Medicine Show in September 2006. I ran across it earlier, but my parents got me thinking about personality types again.

The essay says that NTs are pre-disposed to like science fiction. If you don't know what an NT is, then head on over to take the Myers-Briggs Test and find out what you are. NTs are 'intuitive' and 'thinking', but that probably doesn't tell you much until you start reading about the different personality types.

I score on that particular online test as INTJ, though I have also scored before as INTP. I like INTJ, because we are "Masterminds". Gotta love that word! Read more about the Mastermind type. Most of it definitely sounds like me.

Now if I could only work out how to play to my strengths and shore up my weaknesses when it comes to writing. A lot of the descriptions you'll find talk about how your personality type works on the job or in relationships. Does anyone know a good discussion of the personality types as applied to writing? Any tips for not procrastinating and actually producing material would help me greatly!

I suspect one problem I have related to being INTJ is that I'll think of a 'What if?' scenario and then start finding solutions to it. And then I assume that humans aren't dumb enough not to have come up with the solution. Which means I have no problem and thus no story.

So what's your personality type? Any non-NTs out there bucking the trend?