Why Science Fiction Matters for Social Impact — and Everyone Else
The Truth Is Out There
Let me be honest with you: I talk about sci-fi at work. All the time. In campaign briefings, in content strategy calls, to a recent project where my colleagues measured how many hours I spent perfecting before launch by how many X-Files episodes I’d binged... And I'm done pretending it's a quirky aside.
Science fiction is, arguably, the most politically useful genre of storytelling humans have invented. Here's why: it lets us talk about the things we can't quite say plainly yet.
Sci-fi holds space for the hardest conversations. Which is why I am running The Summer of Sci-Fi, which you can learn more about here: terraloire.com/summer-of-sci-fi.
Here are 5 ways you can indulge in some sci-fi and call it work:
To help you think big picture
Sci-fi zooms you out of today’s crisis cycle and asks, “What happens to whole systems over decades or centuries?” Use it to notice patterns in power, technology, and resistance that you can map back to your campaigns or projects.
Read:The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Watch: Arrival (film), The Doctor’s Daughter (Doctor Who, Season 4 episode 6)
To become a better problem solver
Speculative stories are basically complex problem-solving labs: characters face impossible constraints, incomplete information, and harmful systems, then hack together new tools, coalitions, and strategies. Let those “what if?” scenarios train you to spot non-obvious options in your own work, especially when you’re told “that’s just how it is.”
Read: Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells
Watch:Black Mirror: USS Callister, Black Mirror: USS Callister: Into Infinity (tv episodes), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (tv series), The Martian (film)
To improve your communication skills
Sci-fi writers are constantly translating the unfamiliar into language people can feel: new tech, new species, new economies. Practice explaining your work like a sci-fi concept—grounded in everyday metaphors, focused on human stakes, clear about what could go wrong and what we stand to gain.
Read:Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Watch:Sense8 (series), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (film)
To imagine better futures
Capitalism keeps telling us the only future is more of the same with better apps; speculative fiction says “absolutely not” and offers alternative economies, care systems, and relationships to land and labour. Treat these futures as rough sketches and ask, “What would the smallest version of this look like in my organization, my neighbourhood, my project?”
Read: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel,
Watch: Station Eleven (tv series adaptation of the book), Black Panther (film)
To keep hope front and centre
Good sci-fi doesn't ignore collapse, fascism, or climate disaster; it sits inside them and still insists on solidarity, small joys, and collective survival. Returning to these stories regularly can help you build a “hope practice” that isn’t naive optimism, but a disciplined belief that another world is possible if we organize for it.
Read:Severance by Ling Ma, The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
Note: This recommendation will seem counterintuitive, both of these books are emotionally devastating post-apocalyptic survival tales, but I promise it is worth it.
Watch: Battlestar Galactica (entire series)
Want to have more conversations like this? Sign up for The Summer of Sci-fi here: