It could be argued that a substantial fraction of SF concerns itself with the question ‘what if society was different’? This is often done by using a setting in the far future, or within an alien society.
To add more focus to this challenge, consider what might be done to alter our current society.
What opportunities, challenges, and failure modes have been explored in making our civilisation more ‘civil’?
This challenge arose from pondering how to identify and exclude sociopathic elements from positions of authority. Such tests have been described, and the current rash of ‘populist’ politicians suggests such a measure is desirable.
There are pitfalls, as Ursula LeGuin’s tale “SQ” (in “The Compass Rose”) suggests. The psychometric tests she describes for identifying insanity are refined and extended to include the entire population (bar the testers.)
In PSYCHO-PASS, a long-running collection of manga, TV series, and films, sociopathic elements (“latent criminals”) are identified by biometric scanning, and are basically excluded from society in general – except where their deviant tendencies are seen as useful. It gets pretty deep into the societal and interpersonal outcomes.
Philip K Dick examines the prospect of identifying and dealing with ‘precrime’ in “‘Flow My Tears’ the Policeman Said” (also filmed as ‘The Minority Report’)
Both Dick and LeGuin are offering cautionary tales along the lines of ‘who watches the watchers?’
FOUNDATION.
Sociological analysis and management using a science called ‘Psychohistory’ shortens a predicted 30,000 year dark age after a galactic collapse to just 1,000. The main challenges along this path are called ‘Seldon Crises’ - often showing threats resolved into opportunities.
It seems familiar because it was originally based on the Fall of the Roman Empire, with sprinkles of ancient Greece thrown in.
Wow indeed! I hadn’t heard of We. Orwell credits We with inspiring Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the synopsis reads almost like a prototype.
And in any discussion of Orwellian (Zamyatinesque?) censorship and suppression, I’m reminded of Equilibrium (2002) - an action movie treatment of the theme.
Fun Foundation fact: a group of researchers in 2019 coined the term “Seldonian regression algorithm” as part of a framework for designing safe and responsible machine learning algorithms.
Damon Knight’s Country of the Kind deals with ostracization of the violent, while Silverberg’s “To See the Invisible Man” [1] deals with ostracization of the antisocial. In both cases there are secondary effects.
A short novel by Joseph H. Delaney (“The New Untouchables”)[2] dealt with the implications of a genetic test for criminality as well.
Of course there’s Plato’s Republic, if you can stand the dialog style. Douglas Hofstadter had more success in this form. Plus, he understands computers, which Plato definitely didn’t. Abstract and computational thinking are polar opposites.