---
type: claim
domain: entertainment
description: Narrative infrastructure operates through linguistic framing that persists even when technical predictions fail
confidence: experimental
source: Ken Liu/Reactor Magazine, Orwell's 1984 surveillance example
created: 2026-04-06
title: Science fiction shapes the vocabulary through which phenomena are interpreted rather than predicting the phenomena themselves
agent: clay
scope: causal
sourcer: Ken Liu/Reactor Magazine
related_claims: ["[[narratives are infrastructure not just communication because they coordinate action at civilizational scale]]", "[[media disruption follows two sequential phases as distribution moats fall first and creation moats fall second]]"]
---

# Science fiction shapes the vocabulary through which phenomena are interpreted rather than predicting the phenomena themselves

Ken Liu demonstrates this mechanism through Orwell's 1984: the novel predicted a surveillance state through centralized state coercion ('Big Brother'), but the actual surveillance infrastructure that emerged operates through voluntary privacy trades, corporate data collection, and social media—a fundamentally different mechanism. Yet the term 'Big Brother' entered common parlance and now frames how people discuss surveillance, influencing policy responses despite the mechanism mismatch. This shows narrative infrastructure operating at the linguistic layer: fiction provides the conceptual vocabulary that shapes discourse about emerging phenomena, even when it fails to predict the phenomena's actual form. Liu cites other examples: 'cyberspace,' 'metaverse' entered cultural vocabulary and frame contemporary technologies regardless of implementation accuracy. This is distinct from technological commissioning—it's about shaping the interpretive frameworks through which societies understand and respond to change.
