What's Expected of Us

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"What's Expected of Us"
Short story by Ted Chiang
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction
Publication
Published in	Nature
Publication type	Magazine
Publication date	6 July 2005^[1]

"What's Expected of Us" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ted Chiang, initially published on 6 July 2005 by Nature.^[2] The story was also included in the 2006 anthology Year's Best SF 11 and in the 2019 collection Exhalation: Stories.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Plot summary

A small device, the Predictor, looks like a remote control. It consists of a button and a green display. When you press the button, the screen flashes. However, it flashes a second before you click on the button—by receiving a signal a second from the future. Millions of these devices have been sold. The Predictors create a dystopic world by providing evidence that free will is actually a myth—the future is predetermined and fixed. As a result, people become lethargic and just stop eating entirely.

References

^ Chiang, Ted (July 2005). "What's expected of us". Nature. 436 (7047): 150. doi:10.1038/436150a.
^ Crichton, Danny (February 16, 2020). "Can we debate free will versus destiny in four pages?". TechCrunch. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
^ Oates, Joyce Carol (May 6, 2019). "Science Fiction Doesn't Have to Be Dystopian". The New Yorker. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
^ Martinez-Conde, Susana (December 16, 2016). "What Choice Do We Have?". Scientific American. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
^ Sheehan, Jason (May 10, 2019). "Take A Breath And Dive Into 'Exhalation'". NPR. Retrieved 29 April 2021.

External links

What's Expected of Us title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Expected of Us audiobook in the Internet Archive

v t e Ted Chiang
Short stories	"Tower of Babylon" "Division by Zero" "Understand" "Story of Your Life" "The Evolution of Human Science" "Seventy-Two Letters" "Hell Is the Absence of God" "Liking What You See: A Documentary" "What's Expected of Us" "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" "Exhalation" "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" "Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny" "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" "The Great Silence" "Omphalos" "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" "It's 2059, and the Rich Kids are Still Winning"
Collections	Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002 Exhalation: Stories, 2019
Related	Arrival Heptapod languages

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