“If we keep going like this, we’ll all die!”
Extreme hatred, surveillance and control, climate catastrophe, pandemics…
Science fiction enters a world on the brink of destruction.

Humanity is going through a time of unprecedented upheaval.
We've entered an era where technology is redefining the world, with innovations in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. However, as the first 25 years of this century have passed, pessimism about the future has outpaced optimism.
Extreme inequality, escalating conflicts surrounding gender, religion, race, ethnicity, and preferences, the climate crisis unfolding as devastating disasters, and even extremism fueled by social media.
How should we envision the future of humanity in a collapsing world?

"In a Broken World, We" is an attempt to answer this question by borrowing the imagination of science fiction.
Kang Yang-gu, a long-time science fiction reader and science journalist, presents eighteen science fiction works, including Frankenstein, Brave New World, and 1984, based on the critical and reflective perspective of STS (Science, Technology, and Society), an academic discipline that examines the complex relationship between science, technology, and society.
Each work serves as a lens through which we examine, from various angles, the sharp issues raised by technological civilization, such as labor in the AI ​​era, hyperconnectivity in the digital age, artificial wombs, and extraterrestrial intelligence. At the same time, it serves as a mirror, vividly illuminating the deep-rooted unconsciousness and inertia of our society, such as Western-centric dominant discourses, racism, the elderly, surveillance societies, inequality, and war. Using science fiction as a toolbox for imagination, this book reflects on human civilization and will serve as a guide for contemplating the future of science, technology, society, and, ultimately, humanity.

Since life itself is inseparable from science and technology, imagination based on science and technology overlaps with talking about life here and now.
Good science fiction pushes the imagination to its limits, breaking free from the constraints that govern and limit reality.
Also, such ‘anger’, ‘reflection’, and ‘escape’ stimulate us to imagine a life different from the present.
In that sense, if there is such a thing as a science fiction aesthetic, its core should be not a sense of wonder, but rather a sophisticated 'thought experiment'.
Science fiction should be the result of thought experiments that elaborately depict the world our desires and science and technology will bring us, and make us imagine whether that is the best possible scenario or whether there are other possibilities.
--- From "Entering: Imagining in a Broken World"

Among the scholars' opinions, the following are noteworthy:
The harsh cold environment, where it was difficult to survive, actually became a motivation for artistic activities.
In a difficult situation where people had to worry about tomorrow's survival, humanity had to find a reason for its existence in something unrelated to its immediate survival.
Surprisingly, artistic activities became the driving force of my life.
(…) Art activities were a way to celebrate their survival and dream of a better future.
Now, can you guess why Kirsten and her companions performed in a traveling troupe, and why the survivors enjoyed their performances? After the Fall, the survivors struggled to even sustain themselves (like their prehistoric ancestors).
The rare performances of traveling troupes must have been seen as a ritual that gave them meaning in life.
Of course, Kirsten and others shared that same aspiration, so they would have continued to lead extreme groups and wander around.
--- From "Chapter 3: What good is a novel when the world is in ruins"

In fact, there is a surprising secret behind Dana and Rufus's ill-fated relationship.
Why was Dana summoned to the 19th century every time Rufus's life was in danger? One of Dana's direct ancestors was Hager Wylin, born in 1831.
This is Rufus Wylin, the young white boy who was struggling in the river when Hager's father fell into the river.
(…) Does this passage seem strange? How can a black person be born to a white person? If you think about it, it's not that strange.
As humans migrated around the world (whether willingly or involuntarily), skin color changed for reasons other than sunlight and evolution.
This is because the skin colors of children born from relationships between people of different races (black-white, yellow-black, yellow-white, etc.) vary.
--- From "Chapter 4: Is Race a Scientific Concept?"

Did things change after Lillian and her family used a time travel device to return to the past and learn the truth about Unit 731? Quite the opposite.
Even though we have the opportunity to directly look into the truth of history, the controversy only grows.
Not only the Japanese government, but even many historians refute this.
"Can the accounts of the past, witnessed and recounted by a specific person like Lillian, be truly trustworthy?" "Truth cannot be guaranteed based solely on testimony unsupported by historical data." A historian in the novel firmly states this.
“We simply don’t have enough evidence to confidently describe everything that happened there.” As this backlash continues, Kirino and Way’s time travel, intended to return to the past and uncover the truth of history, is also banned.
And the truth about Unit 731 still remains shrouded in mystery.
--- From "Chapter 8: How Unrecorded Truth Becomes History"

The Manhattan Project, which aimed to end the war by creating the most horrific weapon the world had ever seen: the nuclear bomb, was a success.
But contrary to the expectations of scientists like Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman who participated in the project, the Cold War, which began immediately after the end of World War II, continued for decades until the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.
(…) Oppenheimer's legacy continues into the 21st century with the creation of nuclear bombs in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.
So the idea of ​​stopping war with a terrifying weapon that the other side does not have has effectively failed.
The best we can do is to do our best to prevent war.
Once a war starts, it becomes an eternal war.
Come to think of it, the Korean War isn't over yet (armistice).
--- From "Chapter 10: To End the Eternal War"

Humanity is literally on the edge of a precipice right now.
Conflicts arising from class, religion, and ethnicity are intensifying day by day.
In just half a century, we are snarling at each other, stockpiling nuclear bombs that could destroy the Earth several times over, and ultimately, we are even shaking the stability of the Earth's climate with all kinds of environmental destruction.
Given the reality before our eyes, will turning our eyes beyond Earth improve things? Humanity is struggling to maintain even our current civilization, let alone make contact with aliens living far into space.
Rather than pioneering space colonies, we are more likely to return to the Stone Age.
What about the circumstances of intelligent extraterrestrial life forms on the other side of the universe? If they, like humans, cultivate a civilization based on conflict rather than mutual empathy, wouldn't they be far more likely to self-destruct before they even reach the cosmos? On the other hand, after overcoming such trials and errors, achieving extraordinary civilizational achievements, and ultimately expanding their horizons to the cosmos, the mindset of extraterrestrials is bound to be extraordinary.
Choki is an example of such an alien.
--- From "Chapter 15: Are There Aliens? Yes, They're Under the Sea!"

Because pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing play such an important role in women's lives, the image most associated with women today is 'mother' (myth of motherhood).
With these circumstances in mind, some argue that the reality that forces women to assume (traditional) maternal roles, such as care work, must change.
They welcome the artificial womb, which frees women from the burden of pregnancy and childbirth.
But there's no guarantee that things will always turn out that way.
Even now, there are many women who cannot become pregnant or refuse to give birth for various reasons.
If artificial wombs become commercially available, won't these women face social pressure to become mothers? What should we do if such blatant pressure arises: "You're not going to raise a child in your own womb anyway, so why refuse to have children?"
--- From "Chapter 18: For Whom Is the Artificial Womb?"

This is precisely where the value of reading science fiction that imagines a broken world lies.
Neither Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, nor even Stephen King, who enjoys writing novels featuring demons and crazy murderers who wish for the world's downfall, wants the world to actually be ruined and humanity's future to be a dystopia (see Billy Summers and 11/22/63, mentioned in Chapter 17).
The very act of imagining a world in which these writers have broken down is actually an attempt to prevent such a world from ever occurring.
They are warm optimists, in that they encourage even a single reader to think, "Oh, the world shouldn't be this messed up," after reading science fiction, and to reflect, choose, and act. They also believe that if such movements begin one by one, the world can become a better place.

--- From "Going Out: Anything Before This World Is Destroyed"