Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Science fiction often works by taking dangerous potentials lurking in current trends and then magnifying them out into a possible future. A lot of famous mid-twentieth century science fiction – Brave New World, Nineteen Eight-Four, Fahrenheit 451, imagined what would happen if government gained excessive power over people’s lives. Maybe by the 1990s some were taking this message rather too seriously. 1990s America saw a strengthening of sentiment hostile to government. Conservative groups, such as the ‘Citizens for Sound Economy’ stated an aim for smaller government and less regulation. Then came the Tea Party of the 2010s, and the Republican Party of the 2020s, parts of which appeared to want not just smaller government, but no state institutions at all. Interestingly, the world of 1992’s Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson, imagines the consequences of these people getting their way. With organised crime stepping into the power vacuum, it’s not a pretty picture. The rich live in gated communities, the poor in ghettos. The police are a private enterprise protecting those best able to pay. And of course, the cruelly ironic effect of ‘freeing’ yourself from stabilising institutions, is an increased risk of some deranged individual coming along and imposing a personal dictatorship. And this is where Snow Crash’s magnified threat comes in. Maybe the threat we face isn’t where the old sci fi thought it would be. Snow Crash might be closer.